DigiUnlock
by Digi-Unlock
Summary: A strange console is sent to the Digi Destined. With complications and hilarity ensuing, they take on new identities and are seperated, left to wonder if this world is real or just a game. Rewritten.
1. Chapter 1 : DigiUnlock

_Disclaimer: We do not own Digimon. This is a remake of the "Digi Unlock" story that was on an old account (ZeroOutput). We have revamped the whole story to be more in tune with our matured writing styles. Please go through the whole story over again, even if you have read it on our old account. We have added like a zillion of new pages and lots of new plot twists to the story. Thanks!  
-Miles and Minot_

_Read and review please. Enjoy!_

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**CHAPTER ONE**

**Digi-Unlock**

**In**** another world, in a once beautiful kingdom, stood a boy,** his skin was tan, complementing his dark eyes and black hair that hung past his ears. Darkness surrounded the boy. He wore no shirt, sporting a red cape connected to the silver pauldrons on his shoulders. Tight leather pants clung to his legs, covered up just past the knees by long black boots.

A black tattoo crept up the left side of his torso, reaching out to his ribs in the middle. Attached to a thin chain around his neck was a key that rested on his collarbone. Following him to the tee was a black shadow in his image, only the shadow looked nothing like him. It was jagged and spiked, and much larger than it should have been. It was as though he were wearing a large suit of armor that couldn't be seen, but if one were to reach out and touch him they would feel no such thing.

The shadow began dashing around, finally out of rhythm with its keeper. It moved with unearthly speed from place to place, unable to touch anything but happy enough to simply dance around; its long legs twisting and moving in a way that didn't seem human. "Behind me," He commanded, as the shadow once again took its place behind him, mimicking his every move.

The boy was standing over an aged man who was on his knees. The man's hands were white from clutching one-another. He had been begging for mercy. The sun had just set under the ground, leaving the sky a coppery blue.

The boy held a smirk at the corner of his mouth as the elderly man finally realized his pleading was getting him nowhere, and with his last words the man managed to implore, "Tanek, please don't do this. You have no reason to do this! You cannot destroy our kingdom without reason!"

The elderly man's eyes went blurry as he looked over at the familiar black uniforms marching through the fires that were casting shadows of orange, pinks and reds throughout the town. His voice could barely be heard over the sounds of soldiers wreaking havoc in the background.

"I didn't do this," The boy spoke evenly, detached from the suffering around him and seeming vaguely distracted. "You all did this. All of you did this. You're all paying the price for what you've done." He corrected, his voice not raising a single octave as he contained any anger he might have felt toward this man. Drawing his sword at inhuman speeds, Tanek quickly beheaded the man, turning to leave once he was satisfied with the sight. Having failed in his overall goal but succeeding in sending a message to his prey, Tanek walked through the burning town that was once full of majestic brick housing, inns, shops and the great castle that were now burning to the ground. To him, this was just one place less to look.

**Davis**** had barely walked through his front door** and already he could hear his mother yelling for him to hurry up and come get his mail. He sighed upon entering, hanging up his coat only to watch it fall unceremoniously onto the ground. Ignoring it, he ran to his mom. "What's up?" He asked, curious as to why he had mail in the first place.

"You have a package." She said with a raised eyebrow. The last time Davis had got something in the mail it ended up being the make-it-yourself dirt bike he'd ordered without permission. The aforementioned bike had been sitting in pieces on Davis' floor for eight months now.

Davis ran over to the box on the kitchen counter, picking it up to test its weight. "Wow. First I beat Ken for two out of three in soccer, and now I get a package! Why, any second now, Kari will…" Davis trailed off, looking at his mom. Surprisingly enough, she was still listening to him, and so he decided not to finish that next sentence.

"Kari will do what?" His mother asked, unexpectedly curious as to the workings of her son's mind.

"She'll do…nothing. Any minute now Kari will do nothing. Since, you know, she's always doing something. It's unlikely, is all. Yeah," He babbled awkwardly. Davis wasn't really used to this kind of parental attention. Usually, in his house, whoever he was speaking with had left the room by now. Suddenly remembering why she rarely took an interest in Davis, Mrs. Motomiya continued going about her usual business. "That's nice, dear. Now go take your package to your room so you can finish your grounding."

"But what did I do?!" Davis protested, sure that he hadn't done anything this time, mostly sure.

She brushed him off and continued to cook dinner. "Oh, I don't remember, Davis. Go ask your father if you really want to know."

Davis shrugged, knowing his father could probably come up with something. While Mrs. Motomiya could come up with seemingly any reason to punish her son, Mr. Motomiya had a knack for remembering these reasons. Davis swore he saw a Rolodex full of reasons once, but they assured him it was a paranoid dream. "Never mind," He mumbled in defeat as he walked down the hall to his room. Upon opening the door, Veemon jumped onto the box and began chewing eagerly at the duck tape sealing it.

"What do I feed you, Veemon? This box is heavy enough." Davis yelped, nearly dropping the box under the weight of his little blue friend.

"I bet you bought me that new Digi-Scooter I've been beggin' ya for, huh?" The creature responded, not really remembering if a Digi-Scooter was a real thing or not.

Davis continued his struggle to keep the box in his arms and off of the ground, eventually getting a good grip on his cardboard opponent. "Nope, I think I have a secret admirer, so could ya get off please?"

Veemon lay down with his head propped up under his hand. "Hmm, I dunno. I wasted so much energy jumping onto the box. It might just be too much for these legs to jump back off again." The Digimon grinned, obviously messing with his friend.

Davis staggered over to his desk and set the box down, grumbling something about Kentucky Fried Veemon. "Mom's making dinner, Veemon; you'll get food in like twenty minutes. Now get off of my box so I can open it, will ya?"

Veemon sighed as got off the box. "Fine, fine," He muttered. "So, what's in the box?"

"I don't know yet!" Davis shouted in excitement, psyching himself up with possibilities. "Think it could be from Kari?" He asked, not caring that the answer would be no. It was always no. Veemon checked around the box, humoring Davis' question. "There's no return address, so probably not."

"Maybe she just doesn't want me to know it's from her," Davis countered, trying to find any way it could be from Kari. It wasn't totally impossible, was it?

"Oh get real. Who'd want to buy you a present, anyway?" The blue gremlin mocked, giggling as he rolled on Davis' desk.

"Hey!" Davis yelled indignantly. To think that this was one of his best friends was a sad thought at the moment, Davis mused jokingly.

Veemon sat patiently, waiting for an answer. Davis wouldn't subject-change his way out of this one. "Well?"

Davis thought a moment and shrugged, beginning to open his present. "My gramma likes buying me presents." He offered, figuring that was proof enough.

"Yeah, on your birthday, Davis," Veemon sighed, rolling his eyes at the spiky-haired boy. Davis' birthday wasn't for months.

Davis huffed as he halted opening the box just long enough to give his friend a noogie. Dragging his knuckles across his friend's head probably hurt Davis' knuckles more than Veemon's head, but it was the thought that counted.

Finishing his assault on poor Veemon's skull, Davis finished un-wrapping the clunky object inside the box. A small label on the side of it revealed the device to be the A1099X Masterbox. "Hah!" Davis shouted, sure this wasn't from his grandmother. The last video game his gramma bought him was Pong, and that was last year.

"It's the," Davis started, turning the box around and examining it closely before abandoning his sentence and beginning a new one. "I've never heard of this before in my life." He concluded. Davis didn't claim to be a huge gamer by any stretch of the imagination, but he thought he played enough games to know if a whole new system had been released. "Huh. Well that's pretty cool!" Davis figured, picking up the game that'd come with it and taking it out of its case. "Unlock, eh? Sounds like it might be fun."

**T.K. ****had walked Kari home that day**, as it had seemed to him like the perfect afternoon for a romantic stroll. She thanked him sweetly at the door and watched him as he headed back to the elevator, waving goodbye to him as the elevator doors closed. Once he was out of sight, she walked back inside her family's apartment. "I'm home!" She yelled, hanging up her coat and taking off her backpack to head for her room.

She opened her room's door to find Tai inspecting a big box that was on the white sheets covering her bed. For a long time it had felt a little strange not sharing Tai's room, but it had been almost nine years now, and she had learned to take care of herself without her brother, mostly. Kari seemed to be ground zero for extra-dimensional activity, and having Tai there at night still helped her sleep easier, so occasionally—when the nightmares would return—Kari would spend a night on her old top bunk. Gatomon probably provided Kari with more actual protection than her brother, but nobody made her feel as safe as Tai did.

"Hey Tai," She greeted. "Watcha doin'?"

"Oh, hey Kari," Tai waved distractedly, inspecting the box. "This package came for you today. Mom put it on my bed again, like she does with all your stuff," He grumbled. Truth be told, Mrs. Kamiya put most out-of-place things on Tai's bed. She claimed she was his little delivery boy, a title he did not appreciate.

She stood staring at him for a moment and then repeated, "A package?" It wasn't entirely uncommon for Kari to get a package, especially since T.K. and Davis had begun competing for her attention, but this box had neither T.K.'s delicately wrapped bows and shimmering wrapping paper, nor Davis' hilarious shoelace bows and wrapping paper made from goofy photos of his own face. Davis' shoelace budget must have been through the roof by now.

"Yeah," Tai answered, just as curious as Kari was about the whole thing. This didn't seem like it was from one of her admirers. It didn't have one of T.K.'s prissy bows or Davis' moronic wrapping paper and neither of them would get her a gift like this. "Were you expecting a game console?"

"Hm?" Kari mumbled. "No," She started before raising an eyebrow and glaring at Tai suspiciously. "And how exactly would you know it was a game console?"

"I… You… Game…" He stuttered, wiping some sweat from his brow and trying not to stare at the box. The package looked as though it had been carelessly ripped apart and then scotch-taped back together. "It was Agumon!" He accused suddenly, pointing at the nearby laundry hamper.

"It wasn't me!" Agumon defended as he dragged himself up out of the hamper, his mouth covered in a sweet smelling sticky brown substance. "I've been hiding in the laundry hamper eating these chocolates Tai bought for Sora! Honest!"

Tai frowned at Agumon, unimpressed as he noted the chocolate smothering Agumon's face. "Hey!" He blushed, equally unsurprised and disappointed that his little friend hadn't played along, but not expecting the matter of the chocolates to come up. "Those weren't for Sora, I just like chocolate. It's not like it's a big box. I can buy a gift for a friend, can't I? I mean, just because I used to like Sora doesn't mean I can't give her a big heart full of chocolate, right? It's not even big. A hundred pieces isn't that… Caramel isn't… Matt won't… Sora… It's not like she'll get it now anyways!" He stammered, throwing some nearby dirty pants at Agumon and quickly turning his attention back to Kari. "Open your box!" He shouted, feeling eager for any sort of distraction.

Kari rolled her eyes at the sad diversion, but decided it was Tai's business if he wanted to buy a highly questionable gift for his best friend's girlfriend. The last time she got caught up with those three she ended up in holding cell for three days. Putting the highly convoluted memory behind her, she began inspecting the remains of what was once the packages brown wrapping. "There's no return address." She confirmed, checking all six sides for any sign of where the box might have come from. It was possible Tai had ripped it off, but he wasn't giving any indication that he had.

Kari hadn't finished carefully un-wrapping the container by the time Tai had rushed over, pulled it out of her hands, and ripped it apart. This was exactly why Tai wasn't allowed to be near the presents.

"It's called the Masterbox!" He exclaimed with the excitement of a child on Christmas morning. "I'm really not sure what it does. I think it's a video game!" He shrieked with girlish glee, eliciting some odd stares from his sister and Digimon. Tai wasn't exactly a huge electronics enthusiast. While Tai could hold his own against Izzy six or seven years ago, the video game hobby had largely taken a back seat to school, sports, girls, and saving the world; not necessarily in that order. These days Tai only played video games at parties, so neither Kari nor Agumon were sure why he seemed so excited.

"Did you have some of these chocolates, Tai? I could have sworn I ate them all." Agumon pondered, confused by Tai's enthusiasm. Tai wasn't exactly a laid back guy, getting excited when the situation seemed to call for it and occasionally when it didn't, but up until a few moments ago Tai had just been sitting there calmly inspecting the box and sipping his tea. He assumed it was tea, anyways. Tai usually had a tea when he came home, to help him relax; a fact he kept hidden from most of his friends.

Kari was less curious, taking a suspicious sniff of Tai's cup and understanding immediately what the problem was. "Tai, you know you're not supposed to drink espresso. Do I need to remind you about the holding cell?" She lectured, grabbing the console away from him and placing it on the floor to inspect more carefully.

"I only had one." Tai defended. Surely one couldn't hurt, he had figured. Who would know? It was only a silly house rule, anyways. "Besides," He continued. "Those cops were totally out to get us and you know it. They didn't even have any proof it was us!" Tai maintained, twitching slightly. "I think it's really starting to kick in now. Woo! Do you hear a beeping? I'll get it!" He yelled sporadically, rushing off to answer a phone that wasn't ringing. The effects of espresso on Tai were mostly psychological, with the caffeine having only minor actual effects on him. That didn't stop him from getting hyper whenever he had one, however.

Agumon and Kari merely looked each other for a moment before going back to looking over the video game. "It sure came with a lot of equipment." She noted, looking over a pile of assorted wires, plugs, and visors. "I don't see any way to hook it up to the TV, either." Agumon pointed out, attempting unsuccessfully to fit any of the cords into the television. "Well, this thing is weird." Kari concluded with a certain degree of mock-professionalism. She'd call Yolei about it later. Right now she was hungry.

**Somewhere across the city**, Ken had been sitting at his desk, engulfed in his history debate homework. He sat with his back straight and scrolled on his mouse as he, to Wormmon's exasperation, recited it aloud, as he had been doing for the past hour. Digimon and their Digi-Destined companions shared a bond: a bond of trust and friendship, a bond of communication and love… and unfortunately, an obligation to stand by one another for long speeches and boring history reviews. Ken licked his dry lips before saying, "And I conclude that-"

"Almost done?" Wormmon interrupted, his shriveled voice speaking for the first time in an hour. Most of the Digimon, although they loved their partners, preferred staying in the Digital World as opposed to the real world. There was something about the digital data flying in the air that made them feel much more comfortable and at ease, and it helped that the other Digimon were there with them. However, Wormmon was not a Digimon that shared this view. He quite preferred being in the humans' world where the pillows were fluffy and the food was plenty. He would often visit Ken for weeks on end where he would bask in his favorite cushion, a plush dog beg Ken had purchased online and plump himself full with the pink marshmallows he loved so. He adopted a cozy lifestyle of food and friends while staying at Ken's home. The only downside was that Ken occasionally felt the need to read things to him, school things.

"Just finishing this essay," Ken mumbled as he set down his reading glasses. He closed his word document and swiveled his chair around to Wormmon, who was sitting on the floor curled up in a bath towel. "You bored?" He asked with a wince, knowing full well that his digital friend was uninterested in the essay.

"A little hungry, too," Wormmon added. He didn't want to sound spoiled, but Ken had a bad habit of writing essays almost compulsively. If he thought there was even the slightest chance an essay would be required for any given subject, he would write one.

Ken nodded and knelt to pet Wormmon across the back, scratching the rough areas that Wormmon couldn't reach. He wasn't sure if this ever offended Wormmon, petting him like a dog, but he seemed to enjoy it none-the-less. Ken stood to leave the room and stopped at his door, looking back at Wormmon with a smile. "I'll go see when dinner's going to be ready."

When Ken walked out into the beige living room, he caught his mother walking in with a box. She placed it on the counter and looked up at him saying, "It's for you." She didn't seem surprised, as Ken had packages coming in all the time, be it from online bookstores or shipped soccer equipment from various brand names, asking him to sport their logos. She didn't mind, either. "I bet it's that new mini calculator you ordered!" She squealed. She was always so excited about his school supplies.

He looked at the size of the box and smirked. "No mom, I don't think that's it." He got a pair of scissors and began carefully unsealing the edges. As he removed the black box, he mused and held it in his hands. "Whoa," He said under his breath.

"What is it?" She asked while cocking her eyebrows in a confused manner.

"It's a game system!" He exclaimed.

She smiled at her sons receiving a gift but said, "No more than an hour a day." She cautioned, "Just because you only have one more semester until graduation doesn't mean you shouldn't stick to your studies!" She hollered while Ken ran back to his room, console in hand. "When you're in college I'm not going to be there to keep you straight!" Mrs. Ichijouji said and waited for even a murmur of a response. When none came, she walked up to Ken's door and opened it. "Ken," She said while sing-songing his name in an authoritative way only a mother could do.

Ken was sitting at his desk with the box on top of it. He turned his chair and looked up at his mother. "No more than an hour," He confirmed.

She smiled and said, "Good then." She walked back down the hallway and made herself cozy in the kitchen. She opened the freezer and, holding frozen chicken and meatloaf in her hands, she called, "Kenny, chicken for dinner?"

Inside Ken's room, Wormmon propped his head up at Ken and tried to view whatever it was that Ken was so enveloped in. "Is there food?" Wormmon asked curiously.

"Forget the food," Ken said, eliciting a frown from Wormmon. "Look at this," He said, sitting on the ground, placing the system sitting in between them.

"Can I eat it?" Wormmon asked.

Ken laughed and turned the box around. "Not unless you want really bad indigestion," He smiled. Wormmon frowned as he watched Ken fish a disc out of the box. It was a golden tinted disc with some faint writing on it.

"Who's it from?" Wormmon asked.

"I don't know," Ken responded and then read the title of the game. "This is so peculiar." Ken raised his eyebrow as he blindly fished through the Styrofoam bits left over in the box. "It came with a note!" Ken said as he picked up the paper and read it. "It says, please help us," He paused and looked over at Wormmon, who was now slightly less concerned with food. "It says that I should use this system to… enter a new world and save its inhabitance!" He exclaimed. There was a moment of silence as they both stared at the letter. It was written formally, with what almost seemed to be a feather pen. Whoever wrote it seemed like they were in a hurry, as indicated by the long scratches of ink across the paper. "Do you think it's from the Digital world?" Ken asked.

Wormmon hesitated and thought about the condition of the Digital world when he had left. He shook his head and shakily said, "No. Everyone there already knows you guys have a way in. We would send a… box."

Ken shook his head in confusion and said, "Really weird."

Ken could hear footsteps down the hall, which slowed as his door opened. His mother walked through the door with two plates in her hands and exclaimed, "Dinners ready! You never answered on the chicken or meatloaf, so it's just TV dinners tonight!"

"The kind with pudding?" Wormmon asked and responded happily as Mrs. Ichijouji nodded.

**On the other side of the world**, in New York City, Mimi Tachikawa was on her way home from a vigorous day at Crazy Paul's Discount Shoe Bonanza when she vaguely remembered her mother saying something about stopping off at the post office on her way home. In reality, her mother had said 'Mimi, don't forget to stop off at the post office on your way home', but things like that were hardly high on Mimi's list of memories to prioritize. She was entirely too busy crunching numbers in her head today to bother with things like that.

Mimi doing math was not as uncommon a thing as one might imagine. Very quickly after she discovered the joys of shopping, Mimi had discovered the annoyance of budgeting. Eagar to get back to the shopping part, Mimi had started to pay more attention to her math classes. Now at the end of high school, math had become one of her best subjects. Unfortunately, shopping had done little to help her with any of her other subjects.

"And that's… Oh wow." Mimi muttered to herself as she came to the conclusion that, altogether, she had spent just under seven hundred dollars on shoes at various different stores. Looking down at the giant bag of shoes, it suddenly made a little more sense to her. She was, after all, carrying them in a wagon due to the sheer weight of them all.

"Well, that's not…so bad." She grumbled, crossing the street to the post office. She could get a summer job to pay it off, just like she did last year. She would have to find some place better than the bookstore this year, though. Talk about a snooze fest. If it weren't for the magazine rack she might not have made it to her birthday!

Her trip into the post office and to her box was uneventful. She fumbled around in her purse for its keys and pulled out a pink heart key chain with the box office key attached to it. Sprinting over to box 16224 and seeing that there was a bright yellow package slip in it, she opened the little silver locker and removed its contents. Walking over to the receptionist, she politely rang the bell on the counter three times in quick succession. "Excuse me sir, this slip was in my box." She said in a tone so sweet that the man feared he might go into diabetic shock just by hearing it.

Mimi eagerly watched as the man walked into the back room and came out with a large package addressed to her. "Wow, thanks!" She cheered loudly, causing the man to wince as his ears were assailed. As she asked the man to help her carry her package and many shoes outside, she quickly hailed a cab and stuffed the boxes into the back seat. "Home!" She ordered vaguely, subsequently relating her address to the driver.

Mimi walked into her apartment door with a large wagon of boxes, hiding her shoe bag in the hallway closet. Keeping her new expenses from her parents was probably the best thing for now, and also for the next few years. Walking to the kitchen with the mail, Mimi stopped for a moment to ponder on her package. "It must be the clothes I ordered from the new designer store on fifth!" She supposed aloud to herself.

Mimi's high-pitched voice had alerted her mother to her presence, causing the middle-aged lady to follow the sound into the kitchen. She was wearing a highly fashionable yellow summer dress, and was holding a cup of coffee. Her mother, in an uninterested tone, asked, "Anything at the post office today?" The question was a formality, really. Mimi's mother hadn't cared about any of their mail since the time she'd ordered a collection of rare cacti from that smelly old man.

"Well," Mimi started as she put the package down and handed her mother some envelopes. "There were fourteen bills and a package!"

Mimi's mother took the bills unenthusiastically and frowned as she tossed them in the garbage. "Who's the package for?" She asked with a glimpse of hope in her voice. This hope was then shattered as Mimi giggled, picked the package back up, and began walking towards her room. "Me!" She squealed while entering her hot-pink bedroom and dancing all the way to the large canopy bed set in the middle of her room. She set the package in the middle of her pink satin sheets and began to tear it open with her long nails. "What's that?" Palmon asked, waddling out of Mimi's bathroom and climbing onto the bed.

"Well," Mimi paused, as though she had the most exciting news in the world. "It just so happens to be the new clothes I ordered!"

Mimi couldn't contain the giggles as she pulled out the black box wrapped in bubble wrap. Her smile began to fade into a frown as the wrap revealed the console. Mimi took a moment to evaluate the situation before dropping the box in shock and looking over at Palmon.

Palmon cocked her head to the side, "How do you wear it?" She asked, still not entirely familiar with human fashion in spite of her years living with Mimi.

"You don't," Mimi said through gritted teeth. She crossed her arms, shook her head sadly, and said, "It's not my clothes." Palmon raised an eyebrow and looked the box up and down. "But you said-"

"I know what I said, Palmon, but it's not them." She interrupted, looking the box over and placing it onto her soft pink sheets. "It looks like a big DVD player or something, maybe a video game." She said slowly, pausing for a moment to double-check. Perhaps there were clothes inside the smaller box.

Jumping into the large brown box, Palmon began to giggle and pretend she was a princess in a castle. At least _someone _was getting some joy out of the gift, Mimi figured. Suddenly, as Palmon tumbled the box around whilst defending it from oncoming doom, a packing slip floated out of the box and next to her partner's pillow. Hopping out of the package and slightly annoyed that she had to leave her castle. Palmon began attempting to read the message aloud to Mimi.

"It says… Um, it says," She struggled, drawing Mimi's attention as she attempted to decipher the symbols humans used to communicate back in Japan. Palmon had started learning to speak and read English with Mimi soon after the Digimon had reestablished contact with the Digidestined, but as far as Japanese went she could really only speak it. Mimi generally only communicated in Japanese with her family these days, unless she was visiting the old group back in the land of the rising sun. With how little Mimi wrote in Japanese anymore, it was little wonder Palmon had never learned to read or write any more than her own name. "It's in Japanese." She said timidly, handing Mimi the letter and waddling back over to play in her box.

"Oh!" Mimi exclaimed, finally understanding what Palmon was talking about as she noticed the letter in her hands. "Thanks! Well, this should clear some things up, huh?" She smiled, giggling slightly as she watched Palmon crawl back into the box. Palmon popped out long enough to give her a shrug, still a little embarrassed that she'd been unable to read the letter. She'd come to pride herself on her ability to read, being one of only a relatively few Digimon who could do so, and so when faced with one of the many other human languages it brought back frustrating memories of learning to read in the first place.

"Please save our world." Mimi began, her tone turning from cheery to dead serious halfway through the first sentence. "There should be enough overall for eight of you. This is not a joke. You are our last hope." She finished, turning the note over to find nothing written on the back.

Palmon and Mimi simply sat in silence after the letter had been finished. The last time this request had been made of Mimi, she'd nearly died dozens of times. Their thoughts turned to the Digital World first, but even without speaking they came to the same conclusion. Unless contact with the Digital World had somehow been lost, they wouldn't need any special equipment to get there. Still, the only other worlds they knew of were the Dark Ocean and a few other sticky circumstances they encountered in the Digital World. This was going to be serious, no matter what the case was. As far as Mimi was concerned, something that serious could only call for one course of action. "I'd better call Tai."

**The next day at ****Odaiba High School**, Davis ran up to the group's usual lunch table with a cocky smirk on his face. Today was the perfect day for him to regale all his friends with the news of his new, presumably unique, video game. This was it; this was his day to shine! No more would T.K. hold the Donkey Madness high score over his head. What did a high score matter when you had the newest system? "Hey guys, guess what?" He shouted eagerly.

"Davis, we're not in the mood right now. Kari's in the middle of a story." Yolei chided, biting into a cucumber sandwich. She had always hated those mushy things, and yet she had been eating them every day for the last three years because Ken seemed to like them so much. She felt compelled to like something of his after she learned that Ken had ended a vegetarian diet he had been on for eight months simply because her family had made burgers for dinner one day while he was over.

Davis grumbled and sat with them in a huff, dropping his mushy lunch bag onto the table. He couldn't remember for the life of him what was in the bag, but it hadn't fared well in the sun as he sat on the bus earlier that day. The fact that he had thrown the bag at T.K. no less than four times during English class probably hadn't helped it.

"As I was saying," Kari spoke slowly, glaring slightly at Davis the interrupting cow. "The note said that someone needed help, and it somehow has to do with the game system that came with it. I'm not really sure what it's all about, but-"

"Wait." Davis interrupted yet again, his heart sinking slightly as he realized how little of a surprise his new video game was going to be if Kari already had one. "You got one of those things too, the box with that Unlock game?"

Kari looked at Davis dully for a moment, ready to chew him out for interrupting her again, when her expression changed to surprise as his question finally set in. "Wait, you have one too?" She asked, putting more emphasis on 'you' than was appropriate, as though she wouldn't expect Davis of all people to have one.

"Yeah," Davis responded, either ignoring the implications of her tone or simply not detecting them. "I nearly broke my back trying to get it into my room! It's pretty cool though, huh? Maybe we we're supposed to test them or something?" He guessed offhandedly, poking at what he was sure used to be something resembling a lunch.

Yolei thought for a moment before interjecting. "Did you get a note, too?" She asked, wondering why Davis would think something like that with a note begging him to save the world coming attached to the game. Even Davis wasn't that dense.

"Um, well…" Davis mumbled as he scratched at the back of his head and blushed. "I didn't really check the box afterwards. I actually kind of…threw it away." He admitted, chuckling in embarrassment as his friends sighed. "Why, did yours?" He asked, wondering what his note had said before it joined his various energy bar wrappers and old Band-Aids in the trash.

"Yeah," Kari started irately. "Before Tai tore into my package and destroyed it in the process. We couldn't find enough pieces of it to put it together, but from what we could see it probably said the same thing Mimi's did." She explained, noticing Davis' surprised expression. "Oh, right," She chuckled slightly, forgetting Davis had _just_ joined the conversation.

T.K. raised a hand to Kari slightly, excusing her from explaining the situation once again, offering to do so in her place. "Mimi called Tai last night and said she got one of those things, too. I guess hers came with a note that was asking for help saving a world. Tai and Kari went to check out the Digital World, but it didn't seem to be having any serious problems," He clarified, receiving a grateful smile from Kari for his efforts.

Davis took a wild guess and said, "The Dark Ocean?" Hoping he was guessing wrong. If Kari's experience was any sort of example, the sort of help that the Dark Ocean wanted was not the sort they generally offered.

"We doubt it." Kari responded with relief, not wishing to return to that place for as long as she lived. If she never heard it spoken of again, it would be too soon. "The Dark Ocean calls to people with darkness in them, not people like…well…Mimi." She smiled slightly as laughably absurd images of a dark and despondent Mimi danced in her head. Mimi had her share of troubles just like everyone else, sure, but enough to warrant an invitation to the Dark Ocean? That was just silly.

"Besides," Cody added, recalling the dreadful battle against the horrifically powerful Deamon and the rather ingenious method the Digidestined had used to defeat him. "We can open a portal to the Dark Ocean if we really need to. Why would we need special equipment to do it again?"

"Good Point," Davis agreed. That still didn't answer the overall question, though. Who and where were the packages from? The only other world he could remember was that strange dream world MaloMyotismon had fought them in, and he was pretty sure that place didn't have anyone actually living in it. "So how do we figure out who sent it?" He asked, pretty sure nobody actually knew. It seemed like the thing to say, anyways.

"Did it have a return address on it?" Cody piped up; hoping they could track the sender and find out what this was all about. It was a long shot, sure, but it couldn't hurt to ask.

"No." Davis recalled clearly, happy to have a solid answer to a question for once, even if it didn't help them any. "Have you tried to play yours, Kari? I think mine's broken already." He griped while trying to steer the subject away from the dead-end direction it was headed in. Granted, Davis had only tried to hook up the odd machine for three minutes before he'd given up and eaten all of his dad's oyster crackers. As far as Davis was concerned, anything that took more than three minutes to finish was broken. Incidentally, his parents had long since forbidden him to prepare any meat that hadn't been pre-cooked.

Kari shook her head, recalling what Tai had told her after he'd come down from his caffeine high. "No. Tai said the whole thing looks too complicated, and that we might screw it up if we try to set it up ourselves." She explained, the others nodding in agreement. "Izzy's coming over later to help us with it, though, and if anyone can help us with it, it's Izzy," She finished and saw everyone else again nodding in agreement.

"I'd feel offended if this didn't sound so out of my league," Yolei chuckled feeling slightly embarrassed that she'd been unable to offer any advice on the mysterious object. Still, Yolei was no slouch with electronics herself, and she'd be there to help Izzy in any way she could. "Hey, we should get Ken, too!" She added. "It couldn't hurt to have two geniuses take a look at it, right?"

"Yeah, that's a good idea." Davis agreed, feeling happy things were coming together. "I'll call him when I get home and ask him to stop by Kari's tomorrow." He offered, happy to be of service to the group. He wasn't a computer whiz, but he could at least work a phone. Well, he could mostly work a phone. Davis still had no idea how to check his messages.

"Oh, it's no problem, Davis. I'll call him," Yolei proposed, more than happy for an excuse to call Ken. She spent most of her time talking to Ken in one form or another anyways, but one could never spend too much time on the phone talking to Ken Ichijouji.

"Don't worry about it," Davis assured, not willing to give up his one chance to help out Kari and the others. He was always left in the background with the preparations, and had to work twice as hard during the action to prove his worth. Not this time.

"Really, it's fine. I'll do it." Yolei proposed yet again, her tone much more demanding this time around. Nobody would claim this girl's right to call her boyfriend. Sure she could call him later, but if she invited him it would feel more like a date. If Davis invited him it would just be a hangout.

"No, you don't have to. I will." Davis insisted loudly, locking his eyes with Yolei's. Both of them knew where this was going, as they both began eyeing the school's payphones. Davis' toes twitched, waiting for Yolei to make the first move. He couldn't be the first one to run off, or he might seem like a crazy man; racing against nobody and claiming victory against what everyone assumed was an imaginary opponent. Oh no, not Davis. Fool him once, shame on Yolei. Fool him seven times, shame on Davis.

The two stayed like this for roughly a minute before Yolei began her dash. Davis reacted quickly, starting his run as quickly as he could after seeing Yolei start. Unfortunately, the two neglected to take positions into account while running, and wound up tripping over one-another and falling to the ground. Struggling to stand before the other could, Davis and Yolei were interrupted when they noticed T.K. standing over them, seemingly unaware that they were even below him.

"How about tomorrow after school," T.K. suggested to what seemed like nobody in particular. He drew some curious stares from his two arguing friends before Cody pointed to the cell phone he had been holding to his ear for the last couple minutes. T.K. had been sporadically talking into his phone in the background of the conversation since Ken had been brought up, but Yolei hadn't noticed, and Davis had simply figured T.K. had gone mad and started speaking to himself.

"Sounds great, thanks, Ken," He continued, drawing angry glares from both the goggle headed boy and the bespectacled girl. "Okay. See you tomorrow, then. Bye." He finished, hanging up the phone and putting it back in his pocket. Now neither Yolei nor Davis would need to bother calling Ken over.

Looking back over at his friends, T.K. couldn't help but notice the rather fiery looks Davis and Yolei were giving him. Cody looked slightly worried, while Kari simply hid her face in her hands, snickering. T.K. glanced back and forth between the two angrier looking friends, and raised an eyebrow curiously. "What?"

**The**** next day after school**, the Digidestined had started slowly gathering at the Kamiya household. So far the group consisted only of Kari, Tai, and Izzy, all of whom were sitting in the computer room. The three of them had been inspecting the box for hours now. "It seems to be virtual reality." Izzy stated while looking at the finished product of the components Kari's package had come with. There were a large number of electrodes and several visors arranged next to the console itself.

"Can I ask you a question?" Izzy requested, unsuccessfully attempting for the seventh time to find a way to unscrew the box and check its hardware. "Have you tried to play the game yet?"

"Nope," Tai said. "That thing doesn't look like something you can just flip on and play." He maintained as he gestured to the various equipment that the package had come with. "I didn't want to get stuck in some world with no way back…again." He said, recalling his first time in the Digital World with both fondness and worry. He loved his time there, but the Digital World had a terrible tendency to endanger his life. "Besides," He continued, "It came with a few of those visor things, and if there's one thing I've learned about saving other worlds, it's that you need more than one person to do it."

"Makes sense, I guess." Izzy conceded. Digidestined who tried to do something alone it usually just ended up causing trouble. "I'm proud of you, Tai." Izzy joked. "In the old days, you'd have thrown caution to the wind."

Tai, sounding slightly offended, repeated, "In the old days?" He didn't exactly think of it all as having happening yesterday, but as time went on, and the group spent less and less time together, Tai began going into a mild form of denial. He acknowledged that everyone had gotten on with their life in some way or another, and he knew that the Digidestined would never truly separate no matter how far certain people drifted, but a part of him still wanted to rally the team again; to lead and be looked up to again. He knew in his head that he shouldn't feel unneeded or anything, but in his heart he felt obligated to keep up the level of importance he held when he was out saving the world. Besides, 'old days' somehow seemed like something his grandfather would say. "What are we, sixty? Come on, Izzy, it wasn't that long ago."

"It was nearly half your life ago." Izzy reminded, defending his use of the expression. He needed something to call their first trip to the Digital World, after all. 'Our first trip to the Digital World' simply took too long to say, and it certainly didn't happen yesterday. "I'd say that qualifies as the old days," Izzy finished with a teasing grin.

"Can we get back on track?" Kari asked with a roll of her eyes. Izzy and Tai had a tendency to bicker, and while it didn't seem to bother them, it tended to drag on and drive Kari to levels of boredom normally reserved for pretending to be interested in Joe's latest pop-quiz.

Before either of them could respond with the 'no' Kari was expecting, the telephone rang. Tai picked it up, giving Kari his patented 'don't sass me, brat' glare. As Kari's sense of humor had evolved to be more and more sardonic in nature, she began receiving this look more frequently. "Hello?" Tai greeted, taking his glare off of Kari and flopping back onto his bed with the phone.

"Hey, Tai, I won my game last week! Oh, and is Kari there?" Without technically knowing who was on the other end, Kari instinctively held out her hand to take the phone in the likely event that it was for her.

Tai sighed, not bothering to respond to the boy on the phone as he handed it to Kari. "It's Davis." He grumbled, repeating the words he spoke most every evening around this time of day. "It's always Davis…"

"Hi, Davis," Kari said with an unexciting sort of cheer in her voice that had come with talking to Davis every day for the last five years. Though, to be fair, on weekends and summer vacation Davis only called every day to ask if he could come over. It wasn't something she really minded—Davis being rather fun to talk to—but the monotony of it all had caused her cheery greetings to be laced with a sort of malaise.

"Hey Kari, what's up?" Davis asked eagerly, hoping this was one of those days where Kari had news and would engage him in long, detailed conversation.

"Hi, Davis," Kari repeated simply, feeling the sudden need to play one of her many mind games with Davis.

"Hey." Davis repeated, slightly confused. He could have sworn she'd already said that.

"Hi, Davis," Kari said once more, covering the mouthpiece of the phone to snicker a little at the poor boy on the other end.

"Awe, come on!" Davis begged, realizing what she was up to. She did this every few weeks, greeting him over and over until he finally gave up attempting conversation and tried again the next day. She justified it by saying that if he was going to call every day then she was going to take advantage of it. It was the price he paid for being such a pain in the behind to his friends, he supposed.

"Hi, Davis," Came her response. Kari loved this game, as cruel as it seemed to the outside listener. Davis and Kari had a unique relationship wherein Kari would test Davis' boundaries against his wishes and Davis would attempt to woo Kari against hers. It was a silent, if slightly dysfunctional, agreement they had with one­­ another.

Davis sighed on the other end of the phone. "This is world saving stuff, Kari. Do you really think you should be playing around?" Davis appealed, hoping her sense of duty would override her sense of mischievousness. Kari was met with a grumble on the other end of the phone. "I'm coming over now. I'll bring my package." Davis surrendered, hanging up the phone in defeat. That girl could be trying on her bad days, but man was it ever worth it on her good ones.

"Bye, Davis," Kari said to the dial tone as she hung up her phone. She always felt a little guilty after doing that, but Davis never seemed to mind it the next day. If he wanted her to stop messing with him, she expected he would have said so at some point in the past few years.

"I count myself lucky Sora wasn't like you," Tai teased, smirking at his sister's less-than-admirable treatment of her loyal subject. Granted, he hadn't been quite as, diligent as Davis, but even so, Sora wasn't much for those kinds of games.

"Nope," Kari admitted, poking her brother playfully in the chest and figuring that the best defense was a good offense. "Sora rejected you pretty flat-out."

Years ago it would have been unexpectedly cruel of Kari to say something like this to someone she so revered, but over time Tai's wounds had healed and it became a silent agreement between the siblings that his failure at starting a relationship with Sora was something the two of them could joke about. Of course, it was also a silent agreement not to mention such things in front of Sora or Matt.

The most important silent agreement, however, was not to speak openly of Tai's lingering feelings for his best friend's girl. For a while now it had been Tai's policy that what Matt didn't know wouldn't hurt him, and that a little harmless flirtation never did any harm. Unfortunately for Sora, and all too frequently Kari, Tai's definition of 'a little' stopped just short of skywriting love messages. It was only through painstaking efforts that Kari and Sora had managed to keep the more serious infractions from Matt.

Tai grumbled for a moment, almost feeling defeated, before a mischievous grin crossed his features. Kari was entirely too smug these days, with her witty barbs and clever comebacks. Every so often Tai had to reminder who the king was. "Yeah, she sure did." He sighed in mock-sorrow. "I wouldn't wish that pain on Myotismon himself." He continued. "Yep, it'll sure hurt when you get around to turning down poor…" The older boy trailed off, clearly expecting his sister to finish the sentence.

Kari's expression had turned from innocently arrogant to mildly ashamed. "Touché," Kari conceded. The issue of Davis and T.K.'s affections had been a weak spot of Kari's for years now, and to this day she couldn't quite keep the two in balance.

She knew she was going to have to turn one—or both­­­­­­­—of the boys down at some time or another. She just didn't like to think about it most of the time. She had enough on her mind trying to keep everyone happy without trying to decide whether she should break T.K's heart or send Davis into a conniption fit. Not that she took Davis less seriously at heart than T.K., but she knew Davis would structure his reaction in a way that kept anyone from seeing any legitimate pain.

"So which of them do you like, anyway?" Izzy asked absent-mindedly as he put the finishing touches on the system, pleased with how it had turned out. Upon asking this, Tai's eyes widened and an awkward smile replaced the victorious one he had worn a moment ago. Teasing Kari about the situation as a whole was one thing, but as far as Tai had experienced, depending on her mood, legitimately asking about how she was going to handle things had only ever lead to depression or anger on Kari's part.

To Kari's great pleasure, a loud banging noise coming from the door interrupted before she could begin deciding how to answer. "I'll get it!" Kari yelled while dashing out of the room to answer the door as Tai began to enlighten his clueless friend in the subtle ways of conversing with Hikari Kamiya. Occasionally, on a few blessed occasions, the Digidestined of Light caught a break.

"Come on in!" The pink-clad Kamyia girl called with a mix of enthusiasm and relief, not even sure who was at the door just yet. As it turned out, it was Joe. "Oh!" Kari yelped in mild surprise. It wasn't often that she saw Joe these days. Of all the Digidestined, Joe was probably the second most distant with his friends. As usual, he could always be called upon when something worth gathering for came up, but to this day his studies didn't allow for much hangout time. He looked disheveled; his clothes half-buttoned and his hair a mess. His left side was wet with puddle-water, which Kari found strange considering it hadn't rained in over a week. His appearance would have been cause for concern if it had been anyone else, but that kind of thing was par for the course as far as Joe Kido went.

"Hi, Joe," Kari greeted cheerfully, if slightly uncomfortable. There wasn't anything wrong with Joe, killjoy tendencies aside, but Kari and Joe didn't exactly have anything in common. If she were to be entirely honest, Kari found Joe's high aspirations slightly intimidating. Nevertheless, he was an old friend and she would be damned if she wasn't going to make him comfortable in her home. "You look…" Kari started, looking Joe up and down. He looked like Joe, really. Nothing was especially different. Tousled and wet clothes aside, he didn't look any worse of the wear. Deciding she didn't want to know the story behind the wet clothes, Kari abandoned her sentence. Pulling him into an awkward hug instead, Kari continued her greeting. "It's good to see you again. It's been a while, huh?" She asked, letting him go.

"Umm… Uhh, yeah," Joe responded, squirming slightly at the hug. He saw most of his old friends rarely these days. Tai visited him more often than others, in what he assumed was more of an effort to keep the old group mentality than a personal interest, but he appreciated it anyways. Cody dropped by occasionally out of respect for one of his mentors; awkward though it was for Joe to call himself that. The only other one he saw with any regularity was Matt, which was to be expected from Digidestined of Friendship. The rest he generally only saw at parties or other gatherings. This generally wasn't as big an issue as he was afraid it would be at first, as the Internet had allowed him to stay in better touch with everyone than he'd predicted. He knew what was going on most of the time, and the majority of his friends had stopped dramatically changing physically years ago.

Kari, however, was one of his younger friends, and one of the Digidestined he saw the least. Kari's growth since the last time he saw her made the hug slightly uncomfortable. She was taller, her hair had grown out a little more, and she had, taken shape. "You look…" He started, deciding against that train of thought. "Is everyone here?" He asked, trying to take his mind off of Kari's looks. Joe didn't see her in that way, but a beautiful woman was a beautiful woman, and even reliable Joe's eyes had been known to wander from time to time. "I hope I'm not late."

"Nope," Assured Kari, deciding to ignore the odd looks Joe had been giving her a moment ago and then trying desperately not to give her a moment later. Kari had gotten kind of used to the attention over the years. She tried to take it as a compliment, even though it could be uncomfortable when old friends were checking her out. Yolei had caught Ken looking a little too long once, and the following were the most uncomfortable two hours of arguing she'd endured since her sixteenth birthday when T.K. went over the price limit he'd agreed on with Davis. "You're actually the second one here. Izzy's in the computer room with Tai."

"Oh good," Joe sighed in relief. "Some of these drivers are crazy, you know. I was almost hit seven times on my way here! Seven!" He exclaimed, shocked by the state of traffic these days. Kari knew Joe's definition of 'almost hit' probably involved a car moving anywhere within sight while he was crossing the street, but she pretended to share his disapproving attitude toward people who dared to drive their cars. "Anyway, is the computer room still-"

"Still off of the living room," Kari smiled as she gestured down the hallway.

Joe nodded politely, taking off his coat and putting it on the rack in such a way as to keep it from touching the other coats. He wouldn't want the other coats getting wet, after all. It would be rude, and might promote mold growth. He would have to remember to check his home for mold when he got back, now that he thought of it.

"Joe?" Kari said with a mild impatience, sure that whatever was keeping Joe sitting there staring at the coat rack was probably not worth the fuss he was building up in his head.

"Oh, sorry," Joe apologized as he took his shoes off and headed into the hall closet, and then her parents' room, and then finally the computer room. "Third time's a charm, Joe!" Kari called out to the poor lost Kido, realizing, as Joe stumbled to find his way, how long it had been since Joe had been over.

As Kari went to close the door behind her, she heard the elevator ding down the hall. Poking her head out to see who had come up, just in case it was anyone she was expecting, she saw Matt, Sora, and T.K. walk out among some assorted neighbors. Sora and T.K. waved enthusiastically upon seeing Kari, and T.K. actually broke into a dash for her apartment as soon as he saw her. Matt, meanwhile, merely smiled coolly at her. Matt was too cool for waving now, it seemed. Kari would have rolled her eyes at the way he insisted upon keeping up appearances if he weren't looking right at her, so instead she waved at everyone. T.K. reached her first, who she greeted with a hug that was easily more comfortable than her awkward embrace with Joe.

"Hey guys." Kari smiled, as Sora and Matt approached at a more appropriate speed. The two looked pretty good together, Kari thought, although they were a little overdressed for the situation. Matt had a black, long sleeved collared shirt with a vest over it. A bowtie was hanging undone around his neck, and it occurred to Kari that Matt's ties were generally undone in this fashion. He probably figured it was cool, but even if that were true, everyone knew he didn't know how to tie it. Sora, on the other hand, was wearing a little black dress and heels. Her makeup was done a little more attentively than usual, although Kari doubted that Matt actually noticed this. "Where's the party?" She joked, wondering what exactly they were so dressed up for.

"We-" Sora and Matt both opened their mouths and began to speak, only to stop for one-another. This happened two or three times before Sora finally gestured for Matt to begin. He nodded his thanks to his ladylove and said simply, "I have a gig later and since Sora's only here for the weekend," He paused, referring to the fact that Sora was now in university in Kyoto, "We though we'd have dinner or something," He finished.

Kari merely nodded before T.K. jumped in, saying, "By the way, Yolei and Cody are with us, too." Kari smiled and looked behind him to try and see her two friends but was met with the view of an empty hallway. She cocked her eyebrow and looked back at T.K. "They're still in the lobby. They got into a conversation with the doorman about quantum theories," T.K. laughed.

"We told them not to be long," Came a little voice from T.K.'s backpack. Patamon quickly popped his head out from the snuggly black backpack's zipper and flew out. "I'm here too, I hope you don't mind!"

"Of 'course not!" Kari said as she opened the front door wider. "Well come on in, you guys. There's a few of us here already, we're all meeting in the computer room."

Kari walked with her friends into her computer room and watched everyone take their place in the room. The Kamiya home was the staple household for group hangouts, though as they got older it was more frequently becoming the bakery and coffee house down the street. Nevertheless, all the children felt comfortable enough to seat themselves inside the house.

Matt and Sora, though never usually showing displays of affection in front of their friends, took a seat together on the bean bag chair in the computer room and looked quite snuggly together. Sora pulled out a bottle of water from her purse and kept putting it to her mouth only to have Matt make slurping noises whenever she tried to take a sip, resulting in laughter. Kari smiled at the pair and focused her attention to T.K. "Excited?" She asked.

T.K. shrugged as he watched Joe invest himself in Izzy and Tai's dealings with the box. Joe and Izzy had become quite the tag-team, taking on some questionable tasks involving the Digital World and one, best forgotten, experience involving a microwave, a computer theory and an explosion. Not exactly enthused about entering another unknown world, but figuring it was probably not as weird as the Digital World, T.K. said "I guess, you?"

Kari didn't respond as she watched Joe and Izzy shoo Tai away from the game systems. She laughed and looked back at T.K. and said, "I wonder what it'll be like. I wonder how they think we're going to be able to help them."

"I have no idea," T.K. responded to the rhetorical question his friend had posed. T.K. was about to speak again when he heard a knocking at the front door. Having an abundance of friends was amazing, but he imagined that sometimes it would be a little frustrating for Kari and Tai, the house of gatherings, to wait for ten different people to arrive. Upon realizing how many people would be present, T.K. was getting a better idea of how long this mission was going to take. Good thing it was the weekend.

"I'll it get," Joe said, feeling a need to be productive. Everyone was so used to getting the door at the Kamiya household. He walked to the front door and opened it. Mimi was standing before him with a bunch of different flavored muffins in a small basket, finished off with a great big pink bow. She was wearing tight jeans, yellow high-heeled shoes and a small black t-shirt stamped with the logo of an American band Joe had never heard of before. Her hair was curled and back to being strawberry blonde. Mimi often played with colors for her hair but always seemed to go back to strawberry blonde. Joe personally thought Mimi looked good with any color hair, but that was beside the point.

She greeted him with some English phrases he didn't understand and hugged him in an excited manner. "Joe!" She cheered as she dropped the gift basket and a large yellow purse to the ground in the midst of her hug. "Lemme look at you," She mused as she backed away from and eyed him up and down. "Oh Joe, you don't change a bit, do you?" She said and picked her things up off the floor.

"Thanks Mimi, you look great." He said shyly as he closed the door behind her. "Was it a long flight?"

"I'm not really sure, I was asleep for most of it, but this very nice old man woke me at the end. I mean can you imagine if I had just slept right through and went all the way back to New York?" She giggled. "I suppose it would have been a great conversational piece at parties, but it really doesn't matter, does it Joe?" She smiled and side stepped by Joe to get to her other friends.

"Hi Mimi," Tai said and others greeted her as well. Tai looked up from the Masterbox to Mimi and asked, "Did you bring the system?"

She nodded. "It's so heavy," She complained as she pulled the system out of her large purse. She placed it and her visor on the futon and sat beside it. The children exchanged some stories about their Digimon and some general happenings since the last time they were all together, school, relationships, family and such things. As Izzy lined the consoles he had next to one another he could help but notice that Mimi's visor was white, as opposed to the black ones everyone else had received. He shrugged and figured it was probably a newer model… Still, something seemed a bit off.

"We let ourselves in!" Yolei called from the kitchen. "Ken's here too!"

T.K. and Kari exchanged a knowing glance and Kari wondered how much therapy her doorman was going to need after trying to argue theories with Cody and Yolei. "We're in the computer room, cat burglars!" She yelled. She could hear a ruckus from the kitchen and poked her head out of the computer room. "Snooping?" She giggled.

Yolei didn't turn to meet Kari's greeting as she rummaged through the fridge in search of something to eat. "No food?" Yolei complained as she turned around.

"Grocery day isn't until Monday," Tai said as he made his way onto the living room couch. He slid his body down the cushions from the back of the couch and sighed. "Where's Davis? This is taking forever," He complained.

"Davis isn't here yet?" Cody piped up. "We just saw him in the lobby not too long ago. I wonder where he could be."

Kari raised her eyebrow curiously and wondered what kind of ridiculous scheme Davis was up to. Twenty minutes passed and the children all watched as Izzy, Joe, Yolei and Cody curiously shuffled the furniture about and began moving the futon mattress onto the ground in front of the computer room closet. Joe himself became a little frightened when Izzy removed some rope from his backpack. They set up all of the consoles in a row and Izzy began attaching all of the visors.

"I don't get it," Tai said with an overly suspicious tone in his voice. He leaned against the computer room door with one leg on the door and crossed his arms. "There's no wire or anything, so how are we supposed to get in the thing?'

Izzy looked up from the mess he was collectively making on the floor and held up his index finger at Tai. "Matt, could you bring me all those visors, please?"

Matt complied and picked up all the visors that were placed in a cardboard box near the door. "Here," He said as he passed the box over to Izzy. "What are you gonna do with them?"

"Precisely this," Izzy said as he plucked the visors out of the box. He carefully opened a hidden panel on the black box and removed a computer chip. "I've collected four chips from each system. Now, if you look at the visors," He pointed out as he raised the visor to Matt's view, "On the side there, there's a placeholder for a computer chip."

"Oh sure," Tai pouted as he left his stance at the door, "Matt gets an answer, but when Tai is curious about something it would just be silly to answer him."

Joe took one of the chips from Izzy and took the visor from Matt. He placed the blue computer chip in the side of the visor and the whole visor began to glow blue and purple.

"Talk about a portable disco ball!" Mimi cheered in delight at the colors.

"Hurts my eyes," Joe mumbled as he removed the chip. He placed the chip back into Izzy's hand and took a loud breath before he said, "We're pretty sure the chip connects the visor to what's happening inside of the box."

"So does the box take us to a new world, or is the world actually _inside _the box?" Sora asked, tapping her index finger against her bottom lip.

Just then there was a knock on the door. Kari rushed out and opened the door to reveal Davis standing before her, drenched in sweat. "Hi Davis," She giggled. He was wearing dark blue jeans, a red hoodie, and of course his goggles, which were draped around his neck. Upon seeing her he acquired a large grin that epitomized happiness, as was her usual greeting from him.

"Hey Kari," Davis managed to squeak as he gasped for air. "I ran… All the way here… With Demiveemon on my shoulder," He huffed. The truth was, Davis seen T.K., Matt and Sora all enter the elevator before him and had made an effort to race them by means of the stairs and failed utterly, having to take two juice breaks along the way… But he wouldn't be revealing this information to Kari. "I brought snacks," He said as he gestured to the grocery bag in his hands. "Rice balls, chips, cherry soda and…" He dug through the bag and grumbled, "Oh, well I forgot the pudding but I think this should be enough for everyone, or at least for Demiveemon and I."

Demiveemon grinned as he crawled down off of Davis' shoulder and busied himself inside the bag. "Good, 'cause I like to eat!" He cheered from inside the bag.

"Well guys, come on in!" Kari cheered as she happily took Davis' goodie bag off his hands. Although sometimes annoying, Kari did appreciate Davis' inner sweetness, especially when it involved him going out of his way to buy her favorite flavor soda in bulk. "We're going in the computer room," She said as she gestured down the hall. As they approached the door, Kari stopped as she placed her one hand on the knob and began to turn it. Before opening it, though, she stood on her tiptoes and kissed Davis on the cheek. "Thanks for the snacks, Davis." She smiled.

Davis grinned and followed her into the computer room. Although he basked in her smooches, Davis knew she meant nothing romantic by them. This was the prize he received for enduring Kari's various jokes at his expense. "Hey everyone, sorry I'm late!" Davis called to his friends. He grimaced, but was not surprised by the lack of enthusiasm he received.

Matt and Sora were nestled in the corner on a large beanbag chair. They were sitting with their legs intertwined with one another. Sora smiled and waved at Davis, while Matt ignored Davis altogether as he whispered something into Sora's ear and played with her hair.

T.K was sitting with Yolei and Mimi. He had an amused look on his face as he watched the two girls argue over whose hair had more shine. As Davis entered into the room they all looked up and greeted him with a quiet but friendly hello.

Ken, Joe, Izzy and Tai were all huddled in the middle of the room on the orange shag throw rug. They were poking at the system and had all their 'Save our world' letters laid out in a row on the floor and Joe had scribbled in red pen on various parts of all the letters. There were notes and paragraphs circled and written on, which Davis assumed were theories they had come up with while he was absent. "Hi Davis," Izzy said plainly, not looking up from the strange new system.

"Man, I said I was sorry for being late!" Davis mused defensively as he looked around the room again. "Can't you guys cut me a little slack?" He huffed. "I mean come on, I brought food!" At hearing that there were snacks, everyone looked up at Davis and began snatching items from the bag Kari was carrying.

"Thanks Davis; primo snacks!" Tai grinned as he quickly grabbed two cherry sodas. Kari walked over to the stereo, which was playing. She turned the stereo off, as she assumed Tai or Izzy would probably have a 'safety first', or some other type of inspirational type speech ready for when they suited up to save the world. She sat down on the futon that was in the computer room and invited Davis to come sit beside her. It was kept in the computer room for the nights when their father would have to get up extra early and wouldn't want to wake up their mother. Hence, he would sleep in the computer room.

"So, you guys figure anything out yet?" Davis asked.

"Well," Izzy began as he walked up to Davis. "Did you bring your system and visors?"

Davis nodded and handed Izzy his backpack, which held the system, visors, a digital camera and various zipped plastic bags with stale pizza inside. "Right there," Davis said as he gestured to the visor that poked out of the side of the bag.

Izzy sat back on the floor and set the system up with the rest of them. "Here's what we're going to do," Izzy said as he led everyone over to the futon. He instructed them to lie on the bed and to stay calm. "So," He paused as he looked over his friends who were all lying down. "Mimi, Sora, Kari, Matt, Tai, Ken, T.K. and Davis, you are all going into the system, we are going to place the visors over your eyes and from what I can tell, that should lock you into the system."

Ken turned to Davis who was lying next to him and nervously asked, "From what he can tell?"

As Joe went to put the visor over Sora's eyes she put her hand in front of his and looked at Tai and Kari, who were lying beside each other. "What if your mom comes in the room?" She asked.

"Then we tell her the truth, you are all playing a type of virtual reality on the packaged consoles you received," Izzy said plainly. "She'll just think it's a video game. Now, while you guys are in there I am going to try and find a way to hack myself in, along with items you might need along the way. We conquered the Digital World's problems and we'll conquer this one, too!"

"You guys game for this?" Yolei called to her futon comfy friends. There was a collective cheer as the computer chips were inserted into the eight visors. Just as the visors began to glow, Patamon flew over to T.K. and sat on his chest. "T.K.?" He asked curiously and began to glow blue and purple and soon disappeared into a puff of smoke that ended with a small lightening bold about two inches tall.

Inside the system, the children stood in a white abyss and the only color they were greeted with was a small girl in the distance. She was small and looked very young, standing at two feet tall. She had red hair that was wavy and cut just above her ears. Her eyes were green. She wore a soft green dress that was fringed and ripped at the bottom and folded into hundreds of layers. She looked like she was in terrible pain as she clutched her arms and was knelt over, this pain seemed to cease as she caught sight of the seven children. She rose and ran eagerly to them. She smiled, showing off her small teeth in such a smile that only a young child could give. She reached her small, stubby arms up towards Matt as though she was going to hug him but instead she lowered her arms and stood before them.

"You came," She said, her voice was small but deep for a child. Her statement came out in confusion, as though she couldn't tell to be happy or sad by their presence. Still, there was a fluttering behind her and it soon became clear that she possessed fairy wings. Small and clear with a hint of white, sparkling as they flitted with happiness the same way a dog would shake his tail.

"Yeah, we got your letter." Davis said, taking a wild guess that she was the one who wrote it.

She wrinkled her nose in confusion and repeated, "Letter?" She shook her head sadly as though she now understood and said, "No, I never wrote one." Before anyone could say anything, she piped up again saying, "My name is Asrai. I am here to guide you through this process.'

"Nice to meet you," T.K shifted awkwardly at viewing the girl's sadness and asked, "So, what do we do here, exactly?"

As T.K. waited for an answer, Sora looked around at the group of her friends and turned to Kari with a worried look on her face and whispered, "Where's Mimi?" Kari looked around and could only respond with a worried shrug.

"Well," Asrai started, "Since you are all foreign to my world's design, we will take your human DNA and transport it to a sprite from my world."

Ken raised his brow and said, "A sprite, like in a video game?"

"Something you might compare to a video game," Asrai nodded. "This is no game, though. This will make it easier for us to process your data. You will all be transported into my world with completely different names, identities and different responsibilities." She waved her hand and flew three feet off the ground. She flew over to a hologram model of a sprite she had made appear.

The sprite was of a knight with brown hair and a chainmail suit. He held a sword and was standing in a generic hero pose. "Since you will all be processed into different sprites that have been living according to their character up until now, I will have no choice but to split you up into different areas of the world. If by chance you do cross each others paths you will most likely not recognize each other."

The children exchanged their share of frowns and concerned faces at the prospect of being introduced into a new world without one another. Trying to bring some positive, or possibly cool tidbits into the experience Ken asked, "So do we get weapons and magic?"

"Some of you will," Asrai said softly. "You will have to find out as you go along. We have a few sprites available, a knight, a ninja, a paladin, a princess, some others though it isn't up to me to decide who becomes who. This could be a lengthy process."

"Speaking of which," Matt said, "I kind of have a gig to do, so, what if we need out?"

Asrai set her feet on the ground again and her wings quickly stopped moving. She looked up at him and raised her eyebrow, repeating, "Out?"

"That's…not a good sign." Ken said, now wishing he had volunteered to stay outside of the experience along with Izzy and Yolei.

"Yeah, out. Like, exit the game?" Matt repeated nervously. He knew that this was an important mission, but gigs were important too. He had an overwhelming suspicion that this would be much like the Digital World and that getting out of the experience would take more than hitting a pause button.

"Ah, yes, exit." Asrai nodded in acknowledgement. "To exit the mission you must complete it." With a few waves of her hands she said, "I must send you all now, please stay still."

The group of children exchanged their goodbyes and plans to find one another. The experience would hopefully prove as successful as their excursion to the Digital World, and possibly include meeting some new friends as well. As the children were transported separately into a world of magic and mystery, Mimi was only now appearing in the abyss, which was darkening in color. Gone was the friendly guide. Taking her place was a boy clad in a dark red cloak. All she could see of him were his glowing eyes and the strands of dark hair that fell from the cloak's hood.

"Hello there," Mimi greeted the stranger cheerily.

"Hello," He smirked suavely and in a low voice he said, "I want to thank you for responding to my letter in such short notice."

"Oh, it's no problem, really. I'm always up for helping a friend in need!" She giggled, "My name is Mimi."

"Mimi... What a lovely name," He said quietly, as though contemplating her name's greatness in his mind. That being acknowledged, Mimi was beginning to enjoy this experience. "It's been so long since I've had a friend, Mimi." His voice was smooth but something about him seemed off. She chalked it up to him being part of an alternate universe, and hey, Palmon was a little strange at first too, but now they were great friends.

"I have some bad news, Mimi," He said with a look of deep regret covering his face. "You're the only one of your friends that made it through safely." He watched her expression change to concern and panic; approaching her as it did. He put his hand on her arm and said, "Let me explain myself. You see, there is an old man threatening my world. His name is Xander and he is one of the most powerful wizards in the land. He once prophesied that seven dark warriors would rise up and destroy our land, and in the end it turns out that he prophesied this because he himself planned on summoning them."

"Oh dear, that's awful!" Mimi shrieked before asking, "Isn't it?"

"Indeed," He said and scratched his chin. He sat her down on the floor of the great abyss and said, "It gets worse I'm afraid. In my haste to stop him, I sent out for the eight legendary warriors of light. It was a foolish mistake on my part, for the dark warriors were, in fact, the corrupt warriors of light. Why, even now Xander is brainwashing your friends. You are the only one I could manage to save, as he was not expecting an eighth."

Mimi gasped at the prospect of her friends being soldiers of the darkness and looked up at her new friend, hoping for some answers. "But there is yet hope, Mimi," He said. "If you can defeat both your friends and Xander then you will have saved my land and you will return home unharmed with your friends." He then sternly said, "Only so long as long as you're willing to cooperate."

Mimi nodded and said, "Of course, I'll do anything to save my friends!"

"Of course," He said softly as he tried to stop the slight smirk that was creeping at the corner of his lips. "That is the attitude of a true warrior of light. I will grant you the equipment you will need to defeat the dark warriors," He said and with a wave of his hand he brought forth a wave of dark winds.

Her once trendy pink hair was now midnight blue, falling to her waist and her thin and frail figure was now an athletic build, strong enough to carry the black long sword that was floating before her eyes. While the blade itself was polished black, the handle was silver with a black diamond rose at the bottom of the hilt. There looked to be red glowing ivy wrapping around the grip. Although the said situation overcame her with sadness, the sword began to remind her of Palmon, giving her the hope that she needed that her friends would be saved.

Sealing her fate, she grabbed the sword. Her hands now clad in black gloves, preventing her hands from being affected by the ivy. A long black cloak now billowed behind her, clasped at the neck by a glass rose. She now looked to her guide as to what to do next.

"I will show you the way, Kanzas." His voice was haunting but reassuring as he renamed her. He snapped his fingers and within an instant a chariot with black horses appeared before them, he gestured for her to get in and assured he would be close behind. The chariot took off with Mimi beginning to doze off in her seat.

The cloaked boy began to chuckle to himself as the mist cleared and the chariot had vanished. He mentally congratulated himself on a job well done. He always loved the part of his job that involved lies and deception, then again that was pretty much all his work consisted of. After all, what else is a villain to do?

* * *

_There's more chapters up, too, so keep reading :) Hope you liked it so far!_

_M&M_


	2. Chapter 2 : Incarnations

**CHAPTER TWO**

**Incarnations**

**It was day one in the Kingdom of Ruelah**, and Ken had woken up to a new life. His eyes skimmed the room like a nervous puppy at its first veterinary appointment. The room was cold, with no pictures on the walls and all tiled floors. It felt like no one had lived there. The room was silver, and a mattress, lamp and dresser were what he had to live off of. Thought's of 'how long do I have to be here?' kept running through his head. He stood up off of the flat metal bed he'd be resting on and said, "Well," He murmured as he cracked his back. "I definitely don't play a rich character." His curiosity was the first thing to kick in, aside from the pain in his back. He stood up and caught his reflection in the mirror on a nearby desk.

Horror.

He stared at the eerie reflection staring back at him and pinched his cheek to make sure he wasn't dreaming. His left arm was a long metal rod and was encased with bars and spikes. A shield covered with spikes masked over his gloved hand. Bolts decorated his shoulders. His right arm was a large laser cannon. The letter 'V' was shown twice on the arm, and instead of an elbow, he had a tiny planet Earth. "I don't even want to know," He whispered to no one as he stroked his hand along his arm.

His torso was covered by a breastplate, which slowly moved into his stomach, a spiraling mess of black wires surrounded by protective iron bars. His figure seemed so strong and yet so fragile. His left leg matched his left arm, a rod leading into those wires, protected by bars and leading into a huge metal boot. His right leg and arm matches as well. His thigh cut off at the knee and appeared not to be connected to his leg by anything else except for a mini floating planet Earth again. His foot was a boot covered in spikes. It was a wonder how his leg could even function, and yet when he moved, it complied.

As a finishing touch, he had a wing shaped visor across one of his eyes. His hair, although now black, stayed the same. As he inspected himself, a man rushed in wearing a blue uniform marked with a 'V' over the right breast. Ken backed away and stared wide eyed at the creature. It looked similar to him, if not a little plainer. It had a visor across its face. It appeared emotionless and spoke with no particular tone in its voice. The cyborg noticed Ken's shocked expression and gave him a quizzical look and asked, "Everything alright, commander?"

"I'm fine," Ken responded unsurely. The first thing Ken noticed about his voice was the slightly mechanical sound that it held, with an almost hollow resonance as he spoke.

The trooper nodded and said, "All right then, sir. I just came in to tell you Orbit wanted to speak with you. She says it's urgent."

Ken nodded and followed the trooper down a marvelous hallway of metal and mechanics. He wasn't sure what half of the objects in the various hallways and rooms did, but he was confident that Izzy would have a field day in here. After taking an elevator five flights down, they reached a small room and the trooper excused himself. The room was extremely small, with three desks cramped in the same room one on each wall. "Orbit?" Ken asked, directing his voice at the only other person in the room.

"Commander," Confirmed a young cyborg woman. She had purple hair that flowed just passed her breasts and her eyes were large, black and curious with long lashes. She was dressed in clothes, unlike her cyborg peers that Ken had seen through the hallways. This one, Orbit, she seemed more human than robot. She saluted him with authority and quickly turned back to her computer work. "I am hacking the cameras in Jezaiba's forest. We may have found the ninja."

"Good work." Ken said, hoping that it was in fact good work on her part. She said nothing and he took that as a good sign. Ken watched a piece of dust that smoothly floated in front of his eyes and got lost in the light shining from her laptop. She kept typing away and Ken paced the room. He shuffled his hand through some papers. He picked up a mission statement marked 'PsyNich.' As far as he could gather, he worked for a corporation called the PsyNich, an army of cyborg agents, keeping the peace and solving mysteries for all nations. He raised his eyebrows as he read more about his company and kept wondering what he'd gotten himself into.

"Sir it only takes one mistake, one wrong piece of coding and the whole missions as good as garbage." Orbit spoke softly as she read, "Five, dash, six, six, one. These are the codes off of the disc we acquired from the Rallen disaster." Ken nodded, he wasn't sure what the Rallen disaster was or why it was so disastrous. He merely tried to keep a stern look on his face as she said, "Double check it," and passed him a disc.

He instinctively popped the disc into a slot on his arm and a notice came up informing him he'd already checked the disc. This was good news for him, as he wasn't sure what he was looking for. "I checked them twice." He mumbled. Ken stood up from his metal chair. It seemed the whole building was just like his room: metal and uncomfortable. It was a rather annoying quality of this building, considering every time he would catch a glimpse of his character in the reflection he'd scare himself half to death.

"Good. I mean, one wrong number—one wrong dash—and the whole thing is over." Orbit said as she looked back at the screen and clicked enter. "We're in." Ken walked over to her screen and seen a man lying unconscious in the forest. He raised his eyebrow and looked at her.

"So, who is he?" He asked.

She swiveled her chair around and said, "He's nameless to us thus far, but he's wanted in six kingdoms for regicide." After she stopped typing, a holographic image of the man they were chasing appeared in front of Ken. "Sir, intelligence indicates that he has a number of foreign weaponry. We're not sure where it's from, but it's very high quality. We also have this footage from two years ago." A few more buttons were pushed and a holographic movie was playing in front of Ken, which featured the ninja sneaking into a throne room and slicing the throats of various guards and the king. "He's a professional."

Ken's eyes widened as he witnessed the heartless murderer walk free with treasure and a sword in his hands. "What's our next move?" She asked as she zoomed into the ninja's face. "We have a fleet of twenty men not a mile from there if you would like to attack."

"Uh," Ken weighed his options. She seemed to think attack would come to mind first, so why not. This wasn't his world, and since all he had to go off of was the murderous video footage… "Attack." He nodded, hoping he was making the right decision.

**It ****was day one in the Forest of Jezaiba** and Matt found himself smack dab in the middle of the woods. There were absolutely no signs of civilization within a fifty-mile radius. He picked himself up off the moist ground and wiped the dirt off of his face, looking down at his new gear. His shirt was striped white and green, though the white was now dirty and stained. He had chainmail on his arms leading down to forest green gloves. His pants were tan and in the center of his brown belt held a gold shuriken. He had on black leather boots with two belts wrapped around his right leg. Matt's favorite feature of his new found character was a toss up between the green mask that covered his mouth and the teal waist-cape that was shredded at the bottom. He looked down at the large brown sack that lay beside him. It was brown with a leather strap for easy transportation. He curiously opened it and was startled to see seven jewel encrusted swords shining before him. He carefully ran his hand across the blades and noted that all of them were engraved with names beginning with 'King'. He cocked an eyebrow and quickly shut the case.

He smelled as if he had been traveling through the woods for days. From what he could see of his hair, it was brown and blonde, spiked, and he had a red and green headband wrapped around his head. All at once, the tranquility of the woods ended as some kind of beam whizzed right by his head, letting off a hot glowing blue light. From the distance, metallic stomping could be heard from left and right. He rolled his eyes and began running for his life.

He ran quickly and he ran for a long time. He made down a dark trail in the forest that lead him to a cave entrance. There were dying trees hiding the entrance and there appeared to be dingy, moldy colored water seeping out from the caves foundation. He turned behind him and listened again to the soldiers that were inevitably out for his life. He took a moment to catch his breath and then rushed into the cave.

**It**** was day one in the Kingdom of Siah **and Kari awoke from what could be noted as one of the most dreadful slumbers she had ever had. She was lying on a cement floor in the middle of a drafty, wet dungeon. Standing up, she looked around at the rotting prison cells and noted the smell of moldy food. She couldn't help notice all the people who were yelling at her. A maid immediately rushed to her side. "Princess Vivian, are you all right?" She huffed. "What are you doing in your dungeon?"

"_My _dungeon?" Kari repeated, still somewhat disoriented from her trip into the game. "_Princess _Vivian?"

"You're still with fever, I fear." The maid stated with concern. "Let me escort you upstairs."

Kari stood and followed her curiously as the woman explained to her that the dungeons were no place for the princess, and how they just had a band of pirates escape the prison three days ago. Kari hesitantly followed the redheaded maid up the cracking cement staircase leading them into a blue hallway. The halls had many portraits of people she had obviously never heard of before and yet, male or female, they all looked like her. Live pianists were playing classical music and there seemed to be violinists and harpists in every room. Nowhere could you go without being accompanied by music. Kari stopped in the hallway and looked up at the twelve-foot chandelier made completely out of diamonds hanging above.

Kari informed the friendly maid that she could leave and then took a seat near the piano in a red and beige chair that was probably worth more than her apartment in Odaiba. Just then, someone grasped onto her arm and in a booming voice asked, "Daughter, how are we feeling this day?" The man was wearing a purple cape and a fancy suit encrusted with jewels. He wore a large crown and held a scepter.

"I'm alright." She grinned and tried to look comfortable in her surroundings.

He nodded and in a husky voice he said, "Vivian, I don't know if you've been informed, but there's been an escape by a band of pirates called the Bisons. Not only does this mean we've had some sort of breach in security, but it means that the Jolly Reapers will be along."

Kari stayed silent for a moment, processing the name Jolly Reapers over in her mind. She recognized that it was probably a play on the term 'Jolly Rodger', the famous skull and crossbones flag that pirates used to put on their ships. Kari was curious why pirates did this, figuring it would probably be easier to steal if they didn't wave a large flay around announcing their intentions to rob anyone who got too close. She couldn't make out the significance of the change made to the term, however, and repeated, "Reapers?"

"Precisely." He confirmed. "They are a violent bunch of pirate robbers and murderers. They're a guild making a living on thrashing pirates. A wonderful thought in theory, but they've taken it too far. Vivian, I would appreciate it if you could stay in your room until we get the situation under control." He paused. "If that's alright with you."

"No, no. It's fine." Kari agreed, "I'd like to see my room."

"Pardon?" He asked with a raise of his eyebrow.

Kari shifted awkwardly and said, "Uh. I said I'm sick from…oncoming doom!"

"Well then, off to bed with you," instructed her father. From out of nowhere, the redheaded maid once again escorted Kari and they continued on their long walk down the hallway until it finally ended at a large oak door. The maid pushed it open to reveal Kari's gigantic teal colored room. Her closet was nine feet across and the handles were woodcarvings of a woman's head; presumably her mother. Her bed was even bigger than the closet and was a lighter color green than the walls.

She looked inside her closet, which only held two outfits. One was a copy of what she was wearing currently and was listed as royal armor on a plaque above the clothes. It was a pink dress with long mesh sleeves and golden boots with pink bows on them. She raised her eyebrow and looked at the second outfit. It was a dark yellow fabric covering her torso. It was made of mesh material that draped down passed her ivory colored skirt, which came down a few inches above the knee. Her arms were covered in criss-crossing silk bandages. The outfit finished off with yellow leather boots.

Kari felt a smirk come across her face as she decided to wear the second outfit, but decided to keep her golden boots, figuring they would be more efficient as armor. She closed the closet door and stood in front of the large mirror that hung upon it. Her hair was pink and hung just above her shoulders, except for two long pigtails that hung down to her thighs. She ran her hands through her hair seeming pleased with the new do and then jumped on her bed. As she sprawled her arms across the soft blankets, she only hoped that everyone else was receiving the same lavish treatment that she was.

**It**** was day one in the Desert of Zebien**. Sora opened her eyes, which was met with the bright light of the hot sun. She closed her eyes and sat up. After shading her face, she reopened her eyes. She stood from the sandy desert, sweating profusely. She looked down and said, "So I'm a nomad, but I'm a nomad… princess?"

She was wearing a turquoise strapless ball gown that shifted to a lighter blue in the skirt area. She also had long turquoise sleeves that were in no way connected to the dress, but were tied with blue ribbon to her biceps. She was grateful for the large blue boots hiking up to her knees that were protecting her feet from the burning sand.

She took a break from her appearance and looked around for a sign. Be it a horse, donkey, tree, or a fire-breathing dragon, anything would do. "Sand, there's lots of sand..." She sighed. She kept walking down a path of faded footsteps. There were wild rabbits scurrying around as far as the eye could see. What rabbits would be doing in a desert, she had no idea, but from her adventures in the Digital World she was pretty used to seeing weird things.

"Great." Although hot, the scenery was beautiful. Sand dunes stretching on from as far as the eyes could see. She began walking, and continued on this way for a half hour before concluding she was only going to get even more lost. She started searching through her tan traveler's bag for a map. "Please be a map, please be a…" She paused as she tore through the bag and disappointedly stated, "No map."

She rolled her eyes and then regained some hope that her luck would change when she spotted a water canteen inside the bag. She scooped it up and only continued to be disappointed after attempting to poor out the evaporated liquid. She sat back down in the blazing sand and said, "That's just peachy."

**It**** was day one in the Kingdom of Crious.** Tai woke up in an average Inn that you'd see in a fantasy video game. He stood up from the bed and walked to the mirror that stood on the guest dresser in the room. He had to check himself out, after all. He wore a black tunic with red lining and golden buttons. Silver pauldrons covered his shoulders and lead down into plate gauntlets. Silver gloves were covered by these gauntlets, with chainmail coming up from his wrists to his shoulders. He also wore chainmail leggings, and the outfit was polished off with black boots.

On his belt was a scabbard with a gold sword handle sticking out the top. Tai grinned. He always loved the knights, and now he would get to do himself proud by being the bravest knight around. He exited the bedroom and walked down the stairs. He first noticed the beautiful innkeeper, a young blonde woman with a nice, round, inviting…face. He next caught sight of a cloaked man paying the woman at the register. Tai felt shivers run through his whole body as the cloaked man looked at the stairwell and smirked evilly at him. Tai could only assume his new incarnation knew this man, and most likely the two did not share warm and fuzzy moments together. He nervously made his way downstairs and the woman at the register chirped, "Hello sir! Did you have a good rest?"

"Yes, thanks." Tai answered, sounding unsure. She then handed a large envelope to Tai. It was brown and the paper looked crumpled. "You're the soldier from Beonce." She smiled, extending her hand. "Here, this message arrived for you this morning."

He walked up to the oak desk and leaned against it as he took the letter from the woman. "Thanks. Do you have a letter opener?"

She raised her eyebrow suspiciously and handed him a small dagger from behind the counter. "Will this do?" She asked, looking somewhat perplexed. He nodded slowly, offering a polite smile and said: "Wow, hardcore," as he cut it open from the side and took out the letter, which read:

Dear Isaac,

Your service to King Sebastian of Beonce is yet again needed.

The princess of our allied kingdom, Zebien, has been abducted and taken to the desert. Zebien's king has requested the presence of all our worthiest knights to find the maiden.

There is a reward included. May you have a safe return,

King Sebastian

Tai stood dumbfounded and very eager. He was a knight who was summoned to go find a princess who was captured and taken to a mysterious desert… His friends would think he was pathetic for taking as much joy in this as he did. He then scanned his video game knowledge for what he would need for his journey. He grinned and asked, "Um, miss, do you have a map of the world by any chance?"

She nodded as though it were a usual question and bent over to check a drawer. She quickly stood back up and said, "Sorry, I just gave this Inn's last copy to that man." She then pointed to the cloaked man who was leaving. "That was Sir. Tanek Gyakutenno. He's," She paused and a worried look crossed her face as she finished, "…A traveler."

He pursed his lips and then said, "Oh, thanks." Tai shifted uncomfortably. He made a mental note to remember the gentlemen's name. He moved his fingers in circles on the desk and asked, "Say, did I come in with Tanek, am I supposed to follow him?"

The woman gave Tai a horrified stare and said, "I certainly hope not…"

Tai raised his eyebrow questionably, thanked the woman for her time and left the inn. The town was beautiful, looking as though it had been ripped right out of a storybook. Large stone buildings littered the town and there were ponds and waters that were clear and the air was fresh and breathable. He scanned his eyes around the buildings and looked for a shop. It was just before sunset when the sun brought out all the vibrant colors of the scenery around him. It seemed like winter was just passing in this land and there was barely any snow to be found except small patches lurking around. The ground was no longer wet and the sun was just warm enough that you could dress lightly; the air smelled of nothing, a strong indication that spring would be just here any day now.

After wandering around for some time, he managed to spot a small shop that had a hanging sign with a sword on it posted outside. The bricks on the front of the building were painted yellow and chipping, the countertops inside were all painted plywood and were waterlogged and, in some spots, rotting. He stepped up to the shopkeeper and said, "Hello, do you sell maps?"

The man squinted at Tai and scratched his greasy beard. He lit a cigar and puffed it or a few moments before saying, "Buy or sell?"

Tai scratched his head. Clearly, this man was in no mood to be polite. "Uhh, well, do you sell maps here?"

"Buy or sell?" Came his stern reply.

"I was actually just wondering if you…" Tai paused as he received a very annoyed stare from the shopkeeper. Tai sighed and said, "Buy."

All the while staring at Tai, the man picked up a rusting tin can and spat a black glob into it. He licked his lips, taking back in some of the spit residue. He raised his eyebrow and with a sigh, he pulled a large bag onto the table. He carefully lifted the corners of the fabric to reveal decorated rapiers, daggers, backswords, longswords and various other blades created to kill something. The keeper walked around and opened a loose board on the front of the counter to reveal three variations of plate mail armor. Complete from head to toe. Though Tai had never purchased armor or weapons before, the prices seemed unheard of. Tai decided against asking for suggestions and decided to keep his equipment. He picked up a map that was lying in a stack on the counter. "I'll take this." He said quietly as he set them next to the register.

"That'll be twelve thousand gold pieces." The man said with a smirk. Tai couldn't help but think he was being ripped off, though he was thankful for opening various drawers in the inn and snagging some loot. Since the dresser was next to his bed, Tai merely figured the belongings were his to take. He handed the disgruntled man the money and said, "Thanks for your-"

"Get out!" The man screamed while pointing at the door. It was incredibly odd how this store had a wide selection of thing's to buy, and yet nothing was featured inside the store besides the angry man behind the wooden desk. Tai thought it best to leave and not upset the shop keep anymore; heading out of shop. He walked north in the town until he reached two large doors with a guard was posted by them. Tai thought he might be in trouble, but the man merely offered him a smile and nodded his head in acknowledgment.

"Careful out there, Richard," He said. "It's sand worm season."

Tai gave a small chuckle and pointed his finger towards the man. "You bet," he said and walked through the doors into a grassy field and pulled out his map. "All right, so," He looked down at the map, "If I'm here and this place is Zebien then… I think I need a compass." He scratched his head and sighed as he walked back into the town towards the shop.

**It**** was day one in the Earthen Ocean. **"It's go time. Snap out of it," whispered a voice into Davis' ear. He opened his eyes and looked around. He was sitting on a metal floor covered in water. A strange man was looking down at him. The man had dark skin, a shaved head and wore a black and yellow overcoat. "Marth, its go time," the man again whispered to Davis.

Davis quickly rose and said, "Right." His hands were cold and chapped, his spiky hair frozen in place with tiny bits of water dripping onto his bare neck. His pants were a meshed yellow fabric with a black belt. He was shirtless and wore only dirty white bandages wrapped around his left arm. His right arm was much stranger. It was like a slip on glove that reminded Davis of laser cannons. The letter V was shown thrice on the arm.

He was sitting in a small metal room. He and the man beside him were both sitting in chairs. The man beside him was busy with some controls. It quickly occurred to Davis that they were in a cockpit of sorts. There were six large computer screens and on one of them there was a large pirate ship. "The great battleship Chikastutso," Air could be seen as the man spoke through quivering lips. "Damn Bisons're always finding a way out of a jam, but we got 'em this time." The man nodded with a chuckle. He seemed to be looking to Davis for some kind of acknowledgment, while Davis was fiddling with his hair.

Davis' eyes widened as he noted the open mouth and scary expression of the man. "Yeah, we totally got 'em." Davis paused and then asked, "What are we, um, doing now?"

"A little tipsy, are we?" The man asked as he looked at Davis and laughed saying, "Too much rum?"

Davis nodded awkwardly and forced a burp. "Yeah, must be."

"We were sent on a mission to explode this ship, and now that we're done taking out the big boys, we can head back home to Siah." He laughed as he mimed slicing a throat with his hands. "Now the Bison pirates know that Lex let 'em have it." He said, pointing to himself.

"Hooray." Davis spoke reluctantly. He stared numbly at the floor for several minutes and was glad that he was passed out and did not have to participate in…Bison killing. Herd animals frightened Davis for some reason.

"Long live the Jolly Reapers!" Lex yelled as the robotic fighting machine they were in took off from the deck of the pirate ship and flew away. They flew for quite some time and Davis stayed quiet. They eventually docked in a thick forest.

There was a sign outside a random cave that read 'Forest of Earthen'. Trees shrouded the area and there were marsh waters everywhere. The smell of pine and garbage water overlapped one another and reminded Davis of the smell of his grandmother's house. He walked with his new friend into a more secluded area where he saw hundreds of men, all dressed much the same: yellow pants, swords and weapon holsters across their chests, and black masks. All the men were huddled in a group.

"Pilot," One called frantically and looked at Davis. "Hey pilot, come on!" Davis walked up to the man and raised an eyebrow. The man smirked and said, "Go find that mech of yours. You remember, just west of here. Take this," He said as he tossed Davis a large sack of loot they recovered from the pirate ship. "Tomorrow, we'll be in Siah staking out the princess. You remember the plan, right?"

Davis didn't know what the plan was but nodded anyway, all the while only repeating 'Mech of mine?' in his head. "Totally! How could I forget the plan?" He exclaimed and hoped they wouldn't ask him what the plan was. His poor grades in drama class were proof pudding that he wasn't too good at the whole 'make things up on the spot' deal. His poor lies to his parents about the reasons for these grades were also a testament to that fact.

"Good, get a move on." The man instructed and Davis quickly took off into the forest. After some time of stealthily making his way through what felt like circles, Davis finally came across a camp. A little gray tent set up right next to a large swamp. Davis checked the tent for supplies, food, weapons and the like. He picked up a loaf of bread and a small dagger. He stuffed these things into his pockets and started walking through the swamp. The water was sticky and smelled foul.

As the waters reached his chest, he swam through and removed the now mushy bread from his pockets. He felt fish grazing his legs as he paddled himself across the water. It stretched on for half a mile. When he reached the other side of the lake, he entered a clearing. He saw the shining of metal hidden behind the trees in front of him. He looked left and then right before he ran towards the light. Upon finding it, however, he was now face to foot with a large, powerful looking robot. He could only assume this was the mech they had wanted him to find. After checking his surroundings to see if it was safe, he sat on the ground and took a moment to process what had just happened in an hour span. He found a small pond of spring water nearby and splashed water on his face. He then cupped his hands together and drank some. Now he was ready for action.

He ran to the Mech and climbed up the leg, making his way to the cockpit. It looked something like Lex's mech, but Davis' was reddish beige, while Lexs' was dark blue. He looked for some kind of lever or something to open the door. All he could see was a big red button, Davis thought about the history of big red buttons for a moment, the only thing they seemed to result in were explosions. He pondered this tough decision: To push or not to push.

He shrugged and slammed his hand onto the button and the door flew open. He squealed, "Alright!" and sat in the bright yellow leather chair. He closed the door, locked it and thanked heaven for a moment of peace. "Now then," He mused over the buttons and levers. "How do I work you?"

He looked down on the floor to see a ton of tattered papers, the first thing Davis noticed was a smooth brown cloth with directions on it, opening it up he saw a big red X and a lot of islands. Davis raised his eyebrow and tossed the cloth back onto the ground. "That would be a lot cooler if I knew what it's supposed to be." Also among the papers lay a two thousand three hundred and twenty-four page manual called 'How to Pilot a Mech'.

"Oh man." He sighed as he picked up the huge book. Apparently, even alternate dimensions hated him. He quickly skimmed his eyes over the pages while flipping them frantically. He sighed and slammed the book shut, tossing it on the floor. "Forget it. I'll just wing it!" He said as he started mashing various buttons with his palms until he finally found the power button. He then mentally labeled them as he saw what they did.

"Now, we just need a name for you!" He mused as he sat back in "Now most people name their cars and stuff 'Betsy' but I have an aunt Betsy, so that would just be weird. Hmmm," He scratched the back of his head and said, "How about, Super-Davis? Yeah, I love it 'cause it's just like me: big, strong and better than T.K.!"

**It**** was day one on the Pirate Ship Chikastutso **and T.K. woke up in a dingy room that reeked of rum and a fish he couldn't quite put his finger on. He hopped out of a hammock that he imagined was responsible for the rather unpleasant crick in his neck. He looked down at the tattered rags that appeared as though they were once rather extravagant robes; various symbols trailing down the back, the cloth draped down past his feet onto the floor behind him. He had a hood, his sleeves hung well past his hands, and there was a long, tarnished gold and crystal staff on the floor next to his unaccommodating bunk. Catching his reflection in the window, he noticed his face more or less unchanged. His eyes and soft features remained untouched by Asrai.

T.K. opened the wooden swinging door into a completely wooden hallway. He then noticed that he was swaying… Or was the room swaying? He also heard the sound of someone gasping for air. He walked through some more musty rooms before reaching a set of stairs. He started climbing them and then noticed many red splotches on the stairs that looked like blood.

His first thought was to check and see if anyone had gotten hurt, assuming that this ship had crewmen, his second instinct however, was to run back downstairs and grab a long piece of wood, should he need to protect himself. He made his way up the stairs and saw signs of a struggle: broken bottles, drips of blood and many broken barrels. There was water soaking the deck and he could see no signs of anyone else.

T.K. slowly made his way around a pile of fishing nets when he heard a loud engine's roar. He ran to the stern and caught the last sight of a large, metal, robot taking off into the sky. T.K. hid his face from the blast of smoke and water that seemed to pour onto the ship. When he looked up, the skies were clear and there was no sign of the robot.

After searching the ship for quite some time, T.K. finally came across the captain's room. On his desk there was a letter which read:

Dear Richard,

As I sit in my room, the Chikastutso is being attacked by

a giant, metal demon. Although you are but a traveling

mage upon this ship, it is my dying wish that you take revenge

for myself and my crew by becoming captain of the Chikastutso.

- Captain Truman

"I guess I just inherited a ship." T.K. said as he scratched his head and looked around at the now vacant ship.

**It**** was January 25****th**** at the Kamiya household, 4:45PM**. "They've been in there for a good half hour," Joe stated as he sat with his legs crossed with his chin resting on his hand. He had fixed himself in front of his cyber-conscious friends for the past half hour and showed no signs of leaving, as though he'd made a permanent residence in Tai's computer room. "I wonder how long this will take." He pondered to no one in particular.

Izzy made himself comfortable in front of his laptop and said, "I'm not sure." He the swiveled his chair around and looked at his friends. "We should probably start working on a way to get inside." Ever the mad genius, Izzy smiled and everyone agreed it would be a fun group activity. He was about to plug his computer into one of the slots in the console when Tai's mom walked into the room.

"Hi kids," She chirped cheerfully. Slowly her happy exterior faded into confusion and shock when she spotted the children who all laying on the floor, seemingly unconscious. She held her hand on the doorway and tapped her foot. The kids hadn't been up to any sort of mischief since the digital world and an uncomfortable situation involving Tai and a holding cell. Recalling this she sternly said, "What's going on?"

Yolei could feel the sweat forming on her head as she opened her mouth to speak and then closed it again. This happened twice before she finally said, "I _would_ explain it but I wouldn't want to steal Cody's thunder!"

Cody clenched his teeth at Yolei and raised his eyebrow. He stammered over his words and said, "They're," He pointed to the children and said, "And then they're…" Cody looked around the room in a panic and exclaimed, "Joe knows, don't you Joe?"

"Uhh," Joe stammered, "Yeah, but... I... Um, I have to use the restroom!" Joe said, running down the hallway. Mrs. Kamiya focused her sights on Izzy, who didn't seem nervous at all. He pushed the swivel chair away from Mr. Kamiya's desk and turned to her. Calmly, he said, "They're just playing the newest model video-game. It's just virtual reality, nobody's in any danger."

Mrs. Kamiya nodded hear head slowly. She perked an eyebrow and asked, "Why the computer gimmicks?" Izzy looked back at his laptop and the large Masterbox. "Oh, well, we're just managing everything from outside." He smiled reassuringly and said, "No need for alarm." There was a collective sigh of relief, minus one from an absent Joe, as Mrs. Kamiya's face returned to its joyful state and she said, "Oh, fun!" She then left the computer room.

At hearing her back in the kitchen, Joe emerged from the bathroom and came back to his sitting spot. "Everything went well?" He asked.

"Yeah, no thanks to you, Mr. potty pants!" Yolei said in annoyance. "Nice cover."

"Hey!" Joe defended, "I really did have to use the restroom. With perfect timing, I might add!"


	3. Chapter 3 : Two Quarters

**CHAPTER THREE**

**Two Quarters**

**It**** was day one and the dusk of day two. **Somewhere North of Jezaiba, Matt had been running from the Cyborgs for hours now; his legs tired and numb. This new world seemed to have, finally, smiled on his fortune when he found a hideaway. Almost an hour ago he ran into an under ground sewage tunnel, though now he felt a little lonely without the horrifying sound of mechanical movements. He struggled through the thick swamps, his body shaking inside. "What am I even being chased for?" He said to no one. "What's that smell?" He asked as he plugged his nose with his fingers and looked around at the dead rats and waste that he was literally swimming in.

"Oh, isn't that just pleasant?" He asked sarcastically as he fought off gagging.

He swished the water at the rats and watched them float away from him. He shook his head and closed his eyes, saying, "Okay, okay... I just have to get my mind off this," He paused and opened his eyes as he saw his hand covered with god knows what and shuddered. He shook his hand frantically and could only think of one way to block this vile experience from his senses. When he was little and would watch scary movies, or would hear his parents fighting, singing always made him feel better. He figured it was possible that this quirk had followed him into his teen years, and decided that this would be a perfect opportunity to test his theory. He cleared his throat and started to sing his band's most popular song. "I turn around I can see what's behind me, I turn back around-"

Meanwhile, somewhere outside of the cave walls, Tai was trying to find his way to Zebien. "Man, this is harder than I thought…" He mumbled as he looked down at the map in his hands. He flipped it up side down, hoping to be able to read it better, to no avail.

"How do people read these maps?" Tai asked no one in particular. "Ugh, and this stupid compass, it's made of wood, even the needle!" He chucked the map into the grass and leaned against a large mound of moss. It almost looked like some kind of tunnel was buried underneath it. There were purple flowers and moss covering the whole mound. As he leaned against it, he could almost hear faint music… no, not music, but singing. "What the..."

"You can't take nothin' for granted…you gotta live life today!" Matt sighed through the wall and continued to swim. He rubbed his hand against his throat and swallowed a few times. Singing for 'I turn around' always did make his throat hurt. He decided to sing one of his band's other great hits, and his mind raced through their set list. He pursed his lips and sighed, "Why didn't they ever let me write a song?" He huffed before remembering, "Oh wait, there is that one song they let me write."

Matt thought about this decision for a few more seconds. "Then again, singing 'The girl by the Laundromat' never was a big hit with the guys…" He shrugged and said, "But nobody's here anyways, except for the killer cyborg army that's after me, but they're most likely tone-deaf, so, here goes nothing!"

Outside, Tai kept a safe distance from the wall and listened closely as he heard the very unmelodic verse, 'There was this girl and she was by the Laundromat!' being sung. Tai began to laugh while the song continued, yet he was completely baffled. Using the oddball song as background music, Tai fiddled around with the items in his bag, throwing his useless compass at the cave wall before walking up to kick at it a few times.

Inside, the tunnel that Matt was crawling in suddenly began to vibrate, causing a loud buzzing to hum through his ears. "Stupid cyborgs," Matt huffed as he swam faster, and continued to sing, louder this time, to spite the 'cyborg army' outside.

Outside of the tunnel, Tai gritted his teeth and moved even further away from the cave. Tai listened at the loud song and suddenly he began to remember the lyrics. He then decided to sing along as best he could, "She had seven towels," He screeched. "And eight shirts! She told me she couldn't afford a washing machine!" He finished. Inside the tunnel Matt began to get twitchy, and became very nervous, considering someone knew his song. His voice cracked, but still he soldiered on, singing, "I handed her two quarters..." he waited. Outside, Tai still followed along and sang, "But she said it costs four!" Just then, a loud, fearful scream emitted from the cave, causing a rumbling noise.

"Who's out there?" Matt yelled, hoping that this strange sing along person was one of his friends, not an angry cyborg programmed with knowledge of Matt's poorly written song. When no one answered, Matt yelled, "I'm Matt." He gave his real name, seeing how he didn't know his alias yet. Tai's jaw dropped and his only thought was how his friend had been turned into a wall. Inside, Matt stopped swimming, though he now felt a strong current in the water. He latched onto a rock jutting out of the wall and banged his fist against it. "Hey can you do me a favor?" He called.

Even though Matt couldn't see him, Tai nodded anyway and said, "Uh, sure."

Matt clenched his fists upon the rock and yelled, "Are there any cyborg men around that area?"

Tai looked confused and loudly repeated, "Cyborg dudes?" He raised his eyebrow and looked around the area and said, "No… they aren't from this time are they?"

"This time?" Matt asked as he raised his eyebrow. If it were a cyborg out there, it obviously wouldn't admit to being one. Suddenly, the tunnel began filling to the top with sewage and Matt yelled, "How did you know the lyrics to my song?" More sewage was flooding into the tunnel in great splashing waves, making it hard for Tai to hear what Matt was saying. Fed up with the tunnel in general, Matt took a bomb off his belt and placed it near the wall. "Hey, back away from the wall!" He said as he lit the bomb and swam under the glop.

Tai moved far away from the wall and watched as it exploded. The explosion left Matt and Tai both with covered sewage and rocks in addition to knocking them both unconscious.

They awoke in an unknown location, covered in comfy checkered blankets in a room at an Inn. Tai looked to his right, hoping not to find a monster in the bed next to him. Instead of a monster, next to him was a ninja, equipped with absolutely nothing. Tai went in for a closer look as he stood above the ninja's bed.

The blonde ninja opened his blue eyes and rose from the bed. The ninja looked horrified at the decked out knight that stood above him. Matt quickly stood and slowly walked around the knight and was about to question him when a young girl walked into the room. "Hello," She cheered as she smiled, tossing her short green hair behind her shoulders.

"Who are you?" Matt asked as he looked around the strange room and wondered how he got there.

She nonchalantly began making the beds and said, "I'm Marin, and I saved you guys!"

Tai looked the small girl up and down. She surely didn't look like she had super strength as she looked no more than eight years old. He looked at the ninja next to him and then back at Marin before repeating, "You?" She nodded in confirmation and then explained how she had found them unconscious in front of the sewage storage unit called Cave Yuda.

Apparently, Cave Yuda was an underground river where the people of Zebien dumped their waste. Matt had found one of the many openings into it and had jumped inside to escape the cyborgs. She said she had hoisted them both onto her horse and chariot and how, "For the last two days you've both been residing in my family's inn here in Zebien."

"We're in Zebien?!" Tai shouted. "Thanks a lot!" Lady luck was on his side today. No more reading strange maps or confusing compasses and walking through towns and never ending fields of grass. "What do I owe you?" He asked as he reached into his pockets.

"Well I usually only charge conscience customers for rides," She said with giggle.

"Awesome." Tai said. He felt relieved, as he didn't actually _have_ any money to give her. He picked his sword up off the ground and stood in the doorway. "Well, thank you for all your help, I'd love to stay and chat, but now I have to go see the king. Can you tell me where the castle is?"

"Oh no!" She protested with a giggle. "The king will be greatly offended if you see him smelling of the sewers!"

Tai raised his arm and began smelling his armpit. He didn't smell _that_ bad, did he? Plus, he needed to get to that castle as fast as he could. "No, it's fine. I'll just take my chances. I'm sure he'll be cool with that."

"Now I know you must be foreigners," the small girl smiled. "You should really take me up on my offer." She continued as she made her way towards the bathroom that was off the hall outside the bedroom. As she reached the bathroom she called, "I'll just run a bath for you travelers, just in case!"

Now that the room only held the two of them, Matt turned accusingly to Tai and said, "How did you know my song!?"

Tai looked at Matt, who still looked a lot like he did usually, maybe a little taller and give or take some muscle mass. "Matt," Tai rolled his eyes and said, "It's Tai."

Matt raised an eyebrow and bit his bottom lip. He was happy to have found one of his friends, but cursed his luck that he couldn't have found Sora first. "Tai?" Matt said as he looked up at his friend who was covered in chainmail and metal.

"Yeah?" Tai asked. Matt stood silent as he thought about the last day's events: Running from the cyborgs, and the disgusting muck he had to swim in. "It's been awful!"

"I'll tell you what was awful, that song you were singing in the sewer!" Tai laughed.

Matt leaned against the pink wall and with a raise of his brow he said, "Hey, you remembered the lyrics to it so there must be something memorable about it!"

"I guess," Tai admitted and smirked. He also leaned against the wall and listened to the sounds of the water filling the bathtub. He looked up at the dirt and slime that covered Matt's clothes and couldn't help but laugh at the mental image of Matt swimming around in sewage. "So, why _were_ you in the sewer?"

"Yeah, laugh it up." Matt said with a roll of his eyes. "Don't forget that you're covered in it, too. Anyway, I was being chased by Cyborgs and I had to get away so I ran into the sewer and-"

"Cyborgs?" Tai interrupted. "Why were there cyborgs in this era?"

"I don't know," Matt said, sounding more annoyed than amused. "You're a knight, I'm a ninja, there's cyborgs. There's a lot of thematically inappropriate people here." Tai nodded and saw that Matt wasn't in the mood for comical observances right now. "As I was saying, I ran into the sewer and then when I heard you I grabbed a bomb off of my belt and…" Matt gestured to his belt to show Tai a bomb, but ended up smacking himself on the forehead when he saw that it was empty.

"Where's all you're stuff?" Tai mocked.

Matt sighed and huffed, "Oh man. I guess I must have lost all of my weapons in the explosion... We have to find a shop or something."

"So why were you running, anyway? Tai repeated. Matt didn't answer as he shuffled awkwardly around the room. "Dude?" Tai said as he raised his eyebrows and watched Matt fidget around the room. Matt walked to the hallway and checked for Marin. Tai heard the noise of paper ripping and Matt came back into the room. "Alright" Matt now began to whisper and pull Tai to the corner of the room. "I have to tell you something. While looking through my bag I found a list with names on it, they were all like: 'King John, King Sammy', stuff like that."

"King Sammy?" Tai laughed. "What a stupid name for a king."

"That wasn't really his name, Tai. It's just an example," Matt huffed. "I'm trying to explain something serious to you."

"Okay, so you found a list with king's stupid names on it," Tai whispered back. "So _what_?"

Matt winced and reached for some paper in his pocket. "Some of the names were crossed out." He said and handed Tai a wanted poster. "I found this on wall just outside the room." Matt pointed to the blonde ninja in the picture and then held it up next to his face. "Look familiar?"

**It**** was day one in the dusk of day two in the Kingdom of Ruelah**. "What happened to him?" Ken asked as he looked through the various gadgets and buttons hoisted on the metal walls of this place he called home. He turned to Orbit, who was talking gibberish into a speaker on her arm. "Did we get him?" Ken inquired again.

Orbit turned to him with an annoyed look on her face and said, "No, sir. We think he's gone into the sewage system. We can't get our men in there." Ken nodded and looked into the cameras on the wall that focused on the tunnel Matt had exploded out of. Orbit explained to him that there'd been an explosion but that the organization had spotted a suspicious chariot riding into Zebien… Wherever that was. "We think he may have headed there to take his next victim, the king, sir." She explained.

Ken widened his eyes and simply said, "Oh."

"Now sir," She began slowly, hesitating as though she disapproved of what she was about to say. "Some of our men have been suggesting, given your history, that you might want to take this mission on personally?" She watched Ken, who expressed nothing and seemed to be waiting for her to speak again. She squinted and said, "Your conviction record is immaculate, your speed is excellent, and you are the most intuitive of our whole organization, sir." Her words were spoken with praise and pride, and if Ken didn't know any better, a hint of flirtation. She eyed him up and down as she spoke. "I'm assembling a fleet to take with you, if it's alright."

Ken nodded and said, "It's no problem at all." He hoped he didn't just get himself into astonishing trouble as he began receiving various arm enhancement pieces from Orbit. As she assembled them to his arm, she kept looking him suspiciously in the eyes, as though she was waiting for him to say something important. She moved a locking mechanism over a purple piece of metal she was connecting to his fingers and said, "You're sure about all of this?"

He nodded and said, "Of course, why wouldn't I be?" He now noticed a small smirk crossing over her lips and a look of pride overcame her facial features. "You're very brave, sir." She said quickly. "We're getting the airship ready." She said.

"Roger that," Ken confirmed.

**It was day two in the Desert of Zebien and Sora was weakly thrashing** her way through the desert trying to find some way out of it, and find some signs of civilization. It had been twenty-five hours since she woke up in the terrible desert and she could only assume she had walked in circles a million times by now. She hadn't stopped walking all night. Her legs felt of jelly and her stomach was aching. Exhausted and incredibly dizzy from the heat, she collapsed near a sign that read 'Zebien' and she looked up to see a cloaked figure.

"Would you like to get out of this scorching hot desert?" The figure asked, reaching his hand to hers. His body was encased in a black, hoodless cloak. His light eyes seemed to smile and a look of determination crossed his face. The smirk that possessed his perfectly sized lips frightened her a little, as though he knew something funny that she didn't. Still, if this dark haired man knew where to get a good cheeseburger, she would trust him fully. She grabbed his hand and used it to steady herself on the ground.

She cheered weakly and said, "Thanks so much," as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and began walking. She turned her head and saw another cloaked figure in the distance, completely blurred to Sora's dizzy sight, but Sora could tell she was crying.

The man stopped walking and wrapped his arms around Sora's waist. He had a peculiar look on his face as though he was deeply pleased with her. She flushed red and could only imagine this man leaning in to kiss her and the look on Matt's face when she told him this story. He picked Sora up and placed her on thin air, which soon became a black chariot with a black horse pulling it. Sora felt a shock as her behind hit the chariot and was almost too tired to be frightened. In all reality, Sora was used to strange things happening around her considering the incidents where two summers ago everyone had spent the whole summer back in the Digital World, though they never dealt with real people being the source of strange occurrences. "Who are you?" Sora asked as she watched the man sit in the chariot with her.

"Tanek," he said quietly. Though he spoke Japanese, there was something off about his accent which made it was obvious that the Japanese language was not his native tongue. Just then, the blurry woman from before was sitting across from Sora. Her eyes were glowing and she offered a smile that vanished as quickly as it came.

"You'll be alright now," the woman whispered. The rest of the ride was a little awkward, as whenever Sora tried to make polite conversation, their responses were limited at best. It took almost two hours before Tanek, Mimi and Sora arrived at a huge black castle. It was the kind you'd only see in horror or suspense movies, with the frightening gargoyles that pop out at you from nowhere and weird servants who don't say much. The kind with tall black towers attached to it and vast amounts of hallways. "Just like the ones from the movies," Sora whispered to herself as she gasped in awe at the large scary building.

Mimi watched as Tanek smiled at Sora and she almost thought he might have a crush on her. How silly though, nobody crushed over Sora… except Tai and Matt, boy was that an awkward summer trip. Although Mimi felt a slight despair of her best friend now being incorporated with the powers of darkness, she felt hope now that she could actually watch over and monitor Sora, though Tanek hadn't exactly explained how she could be saved just yet.

As the large wooden drawbridge lowered with an echoing creek, Sora looked over the edge of the bridge at the black waters below, a water creature she couldn't identify jumped out and back into the water with a splash. Tanek looked at Sora and said, "Be comfortable." This statement put her at ease as she took his hand and he helped her out of the landing chariot. He led Sora into the vast castle that was everything she imagined it to be. It was all made of large black bricks with no insulation. The windows held no glass, but were more like open holes in the walls. He led her into what could be considered the "living room". He made casual conversation about the desert heat, how long she'd been lost, where she came from and had summoned a man dressed in a black robe to bring her a drink of water. Although Sora had been taught not to take things from strangers, she considered this a grateful exception.

Tanek knelt and began to light a fire, as despite being in the middle of the desert, his keep was rather cold. With the fire now lit and Sora feeling quenched, he sat across from her on a wooden chair and turned to Mimi, who was standing behind him. With a gesture of his hands, he signaled for her to busy herself in another room. She exited the room slowly and only vaguely seemed like she knew where she was going. He turned back to Sora and with an extension of his hand he said, "Please do me a favor, read this," and handed her a scroll.

She looked down at it and as she tried to read it she became more confused than the time Mimi emailed Sora her English homework assignment for fact checking. The symbols looked ancient and foreign to her. Sora shook her head and handed the paper back to Tanek and said, "Sorry, I don't know what that says." She winced as a displeased look crossed his face and suddenly he didn't seem so friendly anymore. He looked almost taken aback, surprised that she couldn't read the scroll.

A frown crossed his face and he quickly grabbed the paper back from Sora and stuffed it into his pocket. He snapped his fingers and two cloaked men came to his sides. Sora merely ignored them and asked, "Are you the one who sent the letter?"

"Are _you_ aware of the role you play?" Tanek asked. Sora then began to realize that clued Tanek knew she was summoned from Earth. She shook her head and eagerly awaited his response, assuming he was some sort of guide for her. He pursed his lips and leaned forward in his chair. He clasped his hands together in delight and said, "You are a princess of the land of Zebien, destined to lead a great army to victory in a great war. That's who you are, though I simply prefer to say you play the role of damsel in distress."

Sora raised her brows and smirked nervously as Tanek said, "So that would make me..."

Sora looked at her surroundings and then looked back at Tanek, the cloaked boy with a sword in hand. She watched nervously as his henchmen stood on either side of her and placed their hands on her shoulders, "So that makes you," she repeated slowly.

"Your captor..." He mused. His smile disappeared from his face and the henchmen took her into a small room, locking the door behind them.

**It**** was day two on the Pirate Ship Chikastutso** and T.K. wandered through his newfound pirate ship. He was fascinated that his character ended up being the mage, as that was always his favorite video game character. More than enthused though, he was frightened that something killed all of his former crewmates. He sat in front of a large pile of fruits, some of which had rotted, but most of which were still edible. He quickly got bored of eating bananas and wandered around.

The boat had been stagnant for some time now and even while in character, T.K. was no navigator. He had been attempting to steer for hours now. As his mind slowly gave up on the idea of the ship moving, T.K. headed downstairs and began looking through all the rooms below. After opening various chests and pocketing some potions, T.K. rested himself in a hammock. He could hear various shelled animals making their way through the corridors and felt a light shiver going down his spine.

"Man, being a pirate is exhausting!" He said and wiped his sweating forehead. His robe was a heavy fabric that was making him sweat profusely. As he looked down into a puddle on the floor, he noticed glowing blue lines that crawled up his cheeks. He placed his hands over the lines and noticed they felt no different than his skin. The glowing lines started to make him think that if he was a mage, he must have powers, and with powers, he could probably get this boat moving.

He crawled out of his hammock and stood flat on his feet. He laughed a bit as he extended his hand and called, "Fire!" out to no one in particular. It came as no surprise to him when his command failed to produce results. "Um, okay," He paused as he then put both of his hands together and moved them into a dramatic position. He then yelled, "Ala kazam!" Still, nothing came of his chant and T.K. lay back down in the hammock. Video games were so much easier, he could just see a list of what moves he had and select them.

Just as all seemed stagnant and boring, T.K. heard a shrill voice in the distance call, "T.K!"

If T.K had a mirror he was sure that his face would be pale as a ghost. He quickly got up from the hammock and looked around for some form of protection. T.K. was never one to resort to human violence, but on the strange pirate ship and the strange pirate killer possibly still on the loose, he grabbed his staff and, making his way to the doorway said, "Um, Look, I don't know who you are but the captain said that this ship belongs to me now." He paused and then, looking on the bright side, said, "Hey, maybe you can help me figure out how to move the ship!"

"T.K.," The shrill voice yelled again, sounding much more frantic and strained, as though the person was freeing itself from something. "Use your staff, T.K!"

T.K. looked at the staff that he held in his hand. He wasn't sure who this person was, but he hoped that their staff idea would come out on top. He cautiously made his way back to the deck and held his staff up in the air. It instantly began glowing as he yelled, "Steer!"

T.K. waited a few minutes and few joyous as the ship shifted and began moving. He looked over the edge and saw the waters rushing against the side of the ship. He went to the captain's room and began steering the wheel in the southern direction. He smiled happily and decided the best thing to do would be to thank the little voice and possibly befriend it, if only for it's knowledge.

"Thanks so much for the advice, voice from the abyss!" He called as he re-entered the lower corridors.

"You're very welcome T.K., now would you please get me out of this chest?!" It called back in a panic.

"What?" He paused as he stopped in the hallway, trying to figure out the direction of the voice. "Where...where are you?" He followed the voice into a room far, far in the bottom of the ship. He unlocked the door with his staff and low and behold there were piles and piles of gold, silver statues and a large wooden chest. He walked up to the rumbling chest and asked, "Little voice?"

"Over here!" It squeaked. T.K. opened the locked chest by banging his staff against the chest and upon seeing the small, orange Digimon emerge from the box he enveloped his destined partner in his arms and squeezed him as hard as he could as he yelled, "Patamon!"

Patamon blinked and shuffled out of T.K's grasps. He fluttered his wings and landed on top of the treasure chest he had been encase inside of. He rubbed his pudgy cheek against the wooden box and satisfied an itch on his face before he looked up at T.K., who was standing rather dumbfounded. "Thanks, I was starting to feel claustrophobic in there!" He squeaked.

T.K. shook his head in worry and disbelief and asked, "Patamon, how did you get here?!"

"I'm not very sure." He said. "Alls I remember is jumping onto your lap when you were plugged into that scary visor and then the next thing I knew I was stuck inside this box!" Patamon flew over to a closed window which featured the bland view of water encasing over the window. "Maybe we should contact Izzy and find out what happened?" Patamon fruitlessly suggested.

"We've been here a full day now, and we've found no way to communicate," T.K. winced. "We'll keep up the search though." He paused as he sat in front of his Digimon friend. He smirked and said, "Hungry?"

Patamon grinned and happily obliged, "I'm starved!"

**It**** was January 25****th**** at 8:10PM in the Kamiya household** and the children were less than thrilled with their current situation. Joe stood by the window, twitching every once in a while as he replayed Patamon's connection with T.K.'s visor. A small bout of rain hurried down the streets, rushing passed the overflowing sewer and flowed down the balcony roof that sat just outside the window. The cracked window let in a familiar scent of summer. The sound of rain was so peaceful, so calming. Maybe it was the force of nature, but whatever it was, was a powerful noise. He ran his fingers across his chin and then closed the curtain. The sky lit up in shades of blues and whites as lightning sparked off in the distance.

As the rain came to a sudden halt, Joe's nerves got the best of him and he turned around and applied some eye drops. There was a worried tension in the air as Joe dangled his car-keys back and forth, just listening to them clink together. He finally snapped and yelled, "What if Patamon was vaporized?" The sentence, to Joe's surprise, came out quite loud. He sat silent for a moment and repeated, "What if he was _vaporized_?!"

"Shut up," Izzy said, flinching. He should have made sure the Digimon knew what was going on and had gotten out of the room in case the data streaming from the Masterbox wouldn't have some kind of warping effect on the digital data of Patamon or the others. Why, Izzy hadn't been this careless since that time he was using his laptop while taking a bath with explosive results. "I'm sure Patamon will find a way to contact us, or any of them will, really. It shouldn't be so hard."

"What if what of them landed the middle of a desert?" Cody asked, playing an unnecessary devils advocate.

"Yeah," Joe said defensively as he eyed Izzy, believing Izzy should have come to the conclusion that the digital data would have affected the little Digimon in such a way. "Or in front of a bullet!?" Joe shouted and then repeated, "A _bullet_!"

"You guys! We should take on a more positive approach!" Yolei yelled.

"Maybe we should just turn it off," Cody suggested.

"Well," Izzy paused as he walked up to the Masterbox. Over the past twenty minutes, Izzy had been studying up on visor programs like this one. Apparently there were only a few hundred in existence and they were expensive and hard to come by. On his studies he learned that the visors connected to the brain through data waves. "If we stop it now, they could perhaps be lost forever within the game, or die." He said matter-of-factly.

"Die?" Joe repeated. He was shocked at how composed Izzy was about the situation. "I knew this was a bad idea." He sighed. "I hope they finish soon. I mean, we have to go home sometime… Right?"


	4. Chapter 4 : The Black Sheep

**CHAPTER FOUR**

**The Black Sheep**

**It**** was day two in the airship Quartos**. Ken had just received his airship hours earlier. Luckily for him, his artificial intelligence seemed to kick in, as he was flying the airship with no trouble. Upon his way to Zebien, he was now flying across the desert, long and vastly trailing off into more sand. He couldn't help but notice the large black castle, complete with a mote and was confused as to how its keeper kept the water from sizzling away in the heat, or how he found water in a desert in the first place. He found himself steering towards the black-bricked barrier. There were gargoyles and various towers covering the top of the castle.

Suddenly, Ken's radar kicked in and as he got close enough to the castle, he began scanning it for heat. Inside he seen there were only three bodies. One was viciously banging against something, a wall or door perhaps. Instantly feeling the need to check it out, Ken flew to the castles docking station.

"Sir," A guard of Ken's began cautiously. "Sir, this keep is not to be bothered with. Please," He urged, "Let's stay on course."

"Oh, sorry," Ken said half heartedly as his radar turned off. "I just thought I saw-"

Before he could finish, the guard interrupted him saying, "You probably saw nothing. Sir, let's get out of here. If this is sir Gyakutenno's keep," He paused and shivered. Ken perked his eyebrow and listened intently as the guard said, "Sir, he has a large army and I needn't explain how he feels about unwanted visitors." Ken changed the direction and nodded slowly, not really understanding. Then, as if on cue, the Quartos shook as a barrage of bullets came flying from seemingly nowhere. Ken looked through different cameras to catch the culprit and saw five black chariots and a battleship firing at him.

"Scared yet?" Came a husky voice through an intercom. Ken stared down at the speaker and furrowed his brows as he hit the intercom button. "We're moving out, please cease fire."

There was a loud laughter on the other end and the bullets kept firing. The voice then said, "Funny, me running into the Psynich captain. Imagine the silly fool's misfortune as he enters into my mainland."

"We're just flying over the desert!" Ken argued. "I mean no harm," Ken said with a sigh. People were so hard to reason with in this world. "Please," Ken urged again, just for good measure.

Tanek merely laughed on the other end and began firing large blue beams at the ship. He flew underneath and hit the Quartos' engine and with a large explosion, Tanek smiled as the Quartos began hurtling down to the ground.

**It**** was day two at the Kingdom of Siah** and Kari was sitting in her family's castle strolling through the halls of the house. Just as she was admiring some of the artwork and family portraits on the wall, she felt cold hands clutch her shoulders. She turned around and saw her kingly father standing before her. "Vivian," he spoke professionally as he looped her arm through his. They walked down the hall and he spoke to her about the weather, the new grand hall in the summer house and the new choir he had hired for the upcoming… wedding.

"I just wanted to make sure that you were on the level for tonight, my dear." He spoke gently.

Kari nodded unsurely and asked, "Tonight?"

The king beamed with joy and smiled as he walked her into her bedroom. On her pink bed lay an extravagant wedding dress: white, strapless and dripping with jewels. There were shoes and diamonds on the counter next to the dress. The king leaned in to Kari's ear and said, "Surprise!" He watched the confused look on her face and explained, "Your custom wedding dress has been completed, just in time for your wedding tonight."

"My… wedding…?" Kari mumbled as she touched the dress.

"Yes my dear, to Prince Alexander at sunset in the courtyard. Yes, it will be a magnificent ceremony. This will truly unite our kingdoms and be known as the most successful arranged marriage. I am so grateful to have a daughter willing to marry for the peace of the kingdoms."

"Right…" Kari nodded slowly.

Nearby, Davis had taken a break from figuring out his mech and had stopped into a little town. Siah was beautiful with trees growing orchids from here as far as the eye could see. The town formed in a large circle of shops and townhouses all made of gray stone, the focus of the town was set around the giant castle, which sat in the middle of the aforementioned houses. The sky was hitting mid-day as Davis exited the local tidbit store labeled 'Odds and Ed's', named after the oddities found in the store and the shopkeeper named Ed. Davis didn't exactly find the name clever, nor did he appreciate Ed's customer service. "What's his problem?" Davis huffed as he brushed off his pants. "Pushy old dude!" He shook his head and directed his attention to a beautiful girl who was standing not ten feet away.

Kari was walking through the peaceful, charming town that she would inherit in this world. She strolled around the large fountain that sat in the castle gardens. Looking up at the cloudless sky, she noticed a big, strange, red metal object that could be seen from the tops of the trees just beyond the town. She turned around from the strange sight and stared into the gardens, which smelled of lilacs. She could hear footsteps behind her. Turning her head she saw a strange boy approach her. He was wearing yellow pants, had brown hair and wasn't wearing much in terms of a shirt. "Hello," she spoke hesitantly.

"Hey," Davis said cheerily. If he was going to be stuck in this quaint town, he at least wanted to meet someone to keep him company, and this very attractive girl made the perfect candidate. "I'm Marth, I'm just a, uh, traveler."

"Vivian," Kari said as she extended her hand. He shook her hand and went to speak, then paused and tried to construe all of the non-sexual ways that he could use his handsome stranger stance to his advantage. He grinned and said, "I was wondering if you might be able to point out a shop where the shop keep doesn't totally freak out on me!"

Kari laughed but couldn't help him in that respect. She played it off that she was rarely outside of the palace and didn't know the shops very well. The two walked for hours in the forest together. It was beautiful to see all of the trees flowering with different colors and smells looming in the air. Davis had convinced her that he had something amazing to show her. Just inside the forest passed the mushroom fields and palace gardens laid a small clearing where a beige tent was set up next to a small, measly fire pit. Under an apple tree sat a deactivated mechanical being. "That's amazing" She marveled as she looked up at it. "So cute!"

Davis looked up at round, burgundy mech. Although turned off, it's big eyes looking expressively down at the pair, while its small arms were left raised, with many apples in its hands. Earlier Davis had used its arms to help him collect food. "It's not _cute_," Davis corrected. "It's _cool_."

"Do you use it to travel?" She asked as she circled around his tent, crawling inside it and browsing through his belongings as though they were hers.

"You guess it!" He grinned, "That's how I got here."

Kari nodded and asked, "What do you travel for?"

"I rob pirates, mostly. _I think_." Davis nodded and grinned, feeling quite pleased with himself. He then monitored Kari's reaction as she quickly backed up from him at hearing this. He backtracked and laughed as he lied, "Don't worry, I only rob the bad guys!"

"Oh," She raised her eyebrow and walked over to the mech. She leaned up against it and watched Davis attempting to build a mini-castle out of the dirt he'd been spitting on.

After a few hours of talking, Kari decided she would beg this guy to take her away from the kingdom. There were a few reasons she decided to do this, first being that she couldn't find her friends by just sitting around the castle all day and the second being that she really didn't want to marry some stranger by sunset. "Hey, I was wondering," she paused. "Where do you travel to?"

"Oh, just anywhere." He replied, not looking up from his dirt-castle.

Kari then said, "I don't want to sound too forward, and I know this might put you in an awkward position but I was just wondering…"

"What is it, Vivian?" Davis grinned.

She walked up to him and knelt down to his level. She placed her hand on his neck, moving the strands of hair that covered his neck. She smiled as she shyly asked, "Well, I am betrothed to someone… to be married at sunset and I really can't marry someone right now. I have too many things to do, and since you have this big robot here and you travel, I mean, I know I'm kind of imposing but…" she rambled.

Davis now took his eyes off the dirt and checked out the beautiful princess that stood before him. Wow…with a trampy outfit and still pulling off a kind, sweet personality… and the fact that she was a princess… "How can I say no?" Davis said allowed, "I mean, sure!"

"Thank you!" She cheered.

Davis climbed up the leg of his mech and opened the cockpit. He lowered the shaky wooden ladder and helped Kari into his Mech, desperately trying not to look down her blouse as he pulled her up into the cockpit. He showed her his witty labeled controls and took her for a small tour of the mech. Within minutes, they had begun moving. At first, the sudden jolt of moving in the round being scared Kari, like the first time she ever rode an airplane, but after a while it became sort of fun, like an amusement ride.

It had been hours since they started moving, Davis had told her about the instruction book he '_read_' and _'memorized'_, and continued to tell her about his pirate adventures. "So then I slashed at their ship, and it was like 'Wham!' and it exploded and then I was like 'Yeah!' and so then I jumped out of my Mech heroically and stole all of their belongings!" He laughed. Kari gave him an odd stare as he told the stories and gave an awkward smile. After he finished the story the cockpit became silent, the only noise filling was the occasional clanking that they could hear rattling through the mech. "Hey, he stopped moving," Davis mused as he kept pushing the controls forward only to be met with a red flashing lights going off in the pit. Davis got off of his pilot's chair and knelt down in the tight quarters. He fiddled with various buttons and couldn't help but feel embarrassed in front of Vivian.

As the walls began to heat up, Kari asked, "Do you find it hot in here?"

Davis looked over at her and grinned. He sat next to her, extending his arm around her he moved in closer. "Well baby, I..." He paused and in a panic said, "Actually I do!" Davis grabbed Kari's hand and quickly helped her out of the Mech. When they reached the ground, they ran from the mech to get a better view and saw that it was steaming out of the head. Davis kicked the dirt and exclaimed, "Oh great, two days as a pilot and I already broke it!"

"_Two_ days?" Kari scolded. "What about all those pirate stories?"

"Hey, I can get a lot done in two days!" Davis blushed as he defended his, hopefully untrue, stories about heroically saving townspeople from evil, villainous pirates.

"Well," She threw her hands into the air and said, "What do we do now?" She leaned against a tree, the bark scratching against her bare skin. She watched as Davis climbed back into the cockpit and quickly emerged. He hopped onto the ground, a fourteen-foot drop at least, and sat on the ground. She approached him and knelt down as he adjusted his legs to a comfortable sitting position.

Davis pulled out the novel instruction manual and flipped it to page one. "Page one."

For the hours that followed, Davis and Kari sat in unknown whereabouts of the forest. Kari patiently waited for Davis to finish reading his book. She had found a highly suspicious swing made completely of vines that were hanging from a large birch tree. She made herself comfortable on it and had been swinging for the last twenty minutes, making the waiting more bearable. "Hey 'Viv?" Davis asked the overly patient, and very beautiful girl that was swinging near him.

She looked up and sweetly said, "Yes?" All the while wishing she watched him as he sighed and whipped the manual, that'd taken up the last two hours of his time, at a tree. "What is it?" She asked again.

"I don't think," He paused and looked up at the sky, blushing lightly. "I can fix it."

Kari stood up, placing her hands on her hips and tried not to lose her temper. "Marth!"

And failed.

"It's hot!" She began. She didn't want to be rude, but she'd been waiting for a very long time for him to finish reading the manual. "Look, I'm sweating and I've been sitting here patiently for the last two hours as you try and figure out that stupid book and you haven't even offered me a drink!" She yelled even louder. "When you're not reading that stupid book you're kicking the sand or looking at my chest and you won't even talk to me!"

"Viv," Davis defended but not before Kari interrupted again as she said, "On top of the fact that we're hopelessly lost and I'm scared and there could be monsters in this forest and your not equip with anything but that broken robot!"

Suddenly Davis, instead of trying to be charming or cool, became full of anger at the thought to be sweet girl standing before him. He stood up from his familiar sitting spot and walked up to her. "Hey, ya'know what?" He didn't wait for a response before he complained, "I'm hot, and I'm sweating, too. You know, I've been sitting here for the past two hours reading this stupid book and I hate reading!" Feeling a bit bad now that he let his frustration he decided to apologize. "I'm so sorry," He paused and decided against it giving in. "I'm just _so_ sorry I don't have a drink for you, if you'd like, _your majesty_, I can go and look for a river for you!"

"Marth!" She yelled.

"And do you know why I don't talk to you?" He said and she cocked her head to the side. "Because I'm trying figure out the stupid book for _you_, because I took _you___along, and I figured that _you_ wouldn't want to be stuck out here in the hot, scary forest!" Davis took a breath and then sighed while looking at the ground. "And you know what?"

"What?" She asked, annoyed.

He puffed, "It's a Mech, not a _robot_." He watched her for a moment as she stared at the ground and suddenly he worried he may have hurt her feelings. In a stern voice Kari said, "Marth?"

"Yeah?" He replied in an annoyed tone, now also staring at the ground. "Fix your stupid robot!" She yelled

**It**** was day two, and inside of Tanek's keep** there held a very inquisitive Mimi. "What's all this noise?" She yelled to Tanek with a worried expression on her face. Tanek walked casually into the room. "Fireworks," He said with a roll of his eyes. "How's your friend?"

Mimi's eyes lit up and she squealed, "I love fireworks!" Tanek scoffed, the chosen ones were far too easy to manipulate. Mimi returned to the subject at hand and said, "About Sora…" She paused, now returning to a slightly worried exterior. "I was just wondering if we can make her normal again."

"It will be difficult, Kanzas." He replied with a solemn glance to the floor. "She is already under the impression that I am some kind of villain despite my best efforts to convince her of the truth. She believes I have kidnapped her, as in this world she is some kind of princess. She simply disregards any mention of her friends or her true destiny as a warrior of light as gibberish. She truly believes herself to be an inhabitant from this world."

"Oh no," Mimi sobbed as she sunk to her knees shedding tear after tear for her friend, her navy hair spilling over her shoulders as she buried her face in her hands. Surely, she would remember everything if Mimi had a chance to talk to her… it had to be worth a shot. "I want to talk to her." Mimi requested with a suddenly determined glare. There was no way Sora could really forget her. No brainwashing or evil could cloud true friendship, and Sora's love for her friends was unrivaled by anyone, even that really clingy Ken kid! The crest of Love was hers, after all.

"No, I cannot allow that." Tanek said sternly. His brow rose slightly as he eyed her. "Even if she does remember you mentally, a program would kick in upon seeing a warrior of light that would force her body to fight you to the death. Please, just trust me to deprogram her over time." He persuaded, hoping to curb this dangerous line of thought that Mimi had been following. "She did not attack you earlier because it was only thirty minutes ago that Xander uploaded the program, so I'm afraid my original plan to have you break the spell on the warriors of light must be cast aside."

A black wind, called by Mimi's outrage at the situation, began kicking up her cloak and running through her hair. This wasn't fair at all! Whoever this Xander jerk was, he was incredibly cruel. She felt power circulating through her body as she clenched her fist. "Fine..." She submitted as the wind died down. She wasn't about to put Sora's life or mental stability in any more danger than they were.

"Good girl," Tanek said with a sense of finality.

Mimi sighed and crossed her arms. He noted her displeasure with the situation and said, "Now then, on to happier news." He chuckled with a sympathetic smile. "I have found another one of your friends, Kanzas." Mimi's face lit up as he said, "T.K., I believe his name is. He is a weaver of the light in this world. A white mage, we call them. However, he has fallen in with a band of pirates and become one of them," He explained with mock excitement lacing his every word.

"Where do I come in, exactly?" She asked excitedly, eager to get to work restoring the status quo.

He nodded and said, "I want you to take the ship I had constructed for you and capture him. The ship is called the Silver Rose, and it's a technological masterpiece. T.K.'s pirate friends should pose no threat to it." He assured. "Now then, it's docked at the beach a few miles west. Take the chariot to it."

She smiled, nodded and began to say, "But how am I to-"

He interrupted, "The crew knows where he is and how to run the ship. I only need you there as captain. Come back safe, Kanzas." He finished worriedly as he gestured to the door and turned to his own chambers. It was all too easy, really.

"Okay!" She said with renewed vigor. That's one more friend to save, and one less evil minion under Xander's control. She was absolutely amazed that T.K. would allow himself to be under any sort of dark rule. She figured he would sooner... No, she wouldn't think about it. She had too much to do and just enough time to do it. As she turned to leave the dreary castle, she looked about at the frightening gargoyles and tall, dark, twisted spires. The castle was very much like where she imagined every evil wizard of living.

"Tanek doesn't have very good taste..." Mimi mumbled to nobody in particular. "I wonder if he'll let me redecorate this place later. I wouldn't be surprised if Sora only thought he was evil because of how gloomy everything looks." She sighed. Looking at herself in a mirror as she passed by one, she chuckled slightly. "Then again, even I look pretty dark in this outfit. Maybe he just wants to scare off people that are out to get him..."

**It**** was day two in the Kingdom of Zebien and Tai finally caught up with Matt****.** It had been a few hours since the boys were at the inn and Tai had finally agreed to bathe. They were now exploring the town center, looking for shops before Tai headed to the castle. Tai watched Matt in the distance coming out of the shop. He called Matt's name several times before Matt looked up from his item bag. Tai smiled and began walking towards him. They met on a small bridge that sat in the middle of town over a stream of water. "Hey," Matt said as he stared down at his items for another moment before he closed the bag and looked back up at Tai. "You 'been to a shop yet?"

"Yeah," Tai laughed. "Scary, isn't it?"

"What's his problem?" Matt said laughing, referring to the shop keep. He watched as Tai grabbed the item bag away from him and began snooping through the contents. Tai was usually grabby, so Matt thought nothing of him being rude. "So you finished your bath?" Matt said and gave a cocky smirk.

Tai nodded and said, "Yeah. I came to find you so we could head on out." Tai paused and then said, "And to grab some chow!"

"It figures." Matt said with a roll of his eyes as he grabbed the item bag back from Tai.

"Anyway," Tai began. "I was told that if we go to the castle we could get free food, and I mean, they're expecting me, so it's like hitting two Birdramon with one stone!" The two kept walking along the bridge and slowly made their way towards the large castle not far off in the distance. The air was cool and the sounds of the streams were soothing. Birds were chirping, children were laughing, and all of this was almost enough to distract Matt from what Tai just said. "Hold up!" Matt stopped in his tracks, "Are you crazy? I'm not going to the castle with you."

"Wha?" Tai turned around to face Matt and asked, "Why not?"

"I'm wanted," He paused and waited for Tai's face to show some kind of reaction, "For _regicide_." He finished as he pulled a list out from his pocket. He opened the crumpled paper and pointed towards the next name and said, "To make matters worse, the King of Zebien is next on this list!"

"No problem!" Tai cheered as Matt raised his eyebrows and slapped his hand on his forehead. "We just need to get you some new threads!" Tai grinned as he began tiptoeing towards a little white house. "Tai," Matt paused, "You do realize there are no clothing shops?"

Tai smiled and looked around at a town house, saying, "And you know what that means!"

Matt's eyes enlarged and he quickly grabbed Tai's arms and began dragging him in the opposite direction, towards the large castle. "Tai … I'm _not_ going to break into someone's house just to steal clothes." Matt protested with a raise of his hands. Tai shrugged and the two began walking towards the castle. The town was serene, pleasant even. There were many people peacefully walking about the town and many peddlers trying to sell their wares. As they approached the daunting royal castle, the royal flags were being raised outside, purple material with a white symbol in the center of it were waving in the wind. "I'll just wait outside and look busy," said Matt.

"Yeah, you look real busy in your stinky ninja clothes..." Tai teased as he turned around and stuck his tongue out at Matt. The guards then opened the gate to the castle and Tai winked and said, "I'll be right back!"

"_Yeah you look real busy in your stinky ninja clothes,_" Matt repeated mockingly as he watched Tai approach the door. "Humph."

Tai was greeted by the guards at the door and taken into the King's throne room. He knelt down before the king and gave a solute. "Sir Isaac, you have come here by request of the king of Zebien!" An annoying guard shouted. He was dressed in the same style of uniform Tai had on, chainmail on the arms, platemale on the body and boots that came up to his thigh.

The king was everything one would picture him to be, with a long purple cape with white fur at the top and a tiger print covering the white. He wore a large golden crown and held a staff. He stood from his large throne and stepped down two stairs that went up to the throne platform. He held both of his hands on his staff and said, "Our princess has been captured and we have had rumor that she was taken to a desert, but that was days ago." He paused and gave a sigh before continuing, "Her current whereabouts are unknown. There is a new Blacksmith I know of," He said as he handed Tai a small map. "You should look him up. He lives in Halacab just north of this landscape. I am sure it will guide you on your journey if you can find it. If you have heard, there _is_ a reward of the princess' hand in marriage. Sir Isaac, will you find her for us?"

Tai stood from his kneeling position and said, "Yes, sir!"

**It**** was day two on the Pirate Ship Chikastutso and T.K. was bored and confused**. There was really no other way to put it. Patamon had fallen asleep an hour ago, and T.K. had taken the time to explore the treasury for anything that might be useful. He might not have been big on video gaming, but he knew the word treasury was a good thing in pretty much any universe.

He had spoken to Patamon and asked him how it was he knew T.K. should use his staff for magic. In response, Patamon explained that when he had entered the game, Asrai told him that she would send him to a magical pirate ship that was controlled by a mage's staff. T.K. accepted that at face value, though wished that Asrai had been that specific with him.

The treasury was filled with gold and silver pieces along with rubies, emeralds and various other valuables. T.K. decided that he should try and pocket as much as he could. He filled a sack with gold, silver and gems, along with a nice looking pair of lady's gloves, a necklace, ten vials of potions, a small silver gadget and a book. All of this was just in case he would need to barter in the future.

After he looted the treasury he made his way back up to the deck. He sat on a wooden bench attached to the railing and watched the waves roll by. The ship was heading south for whatever reason. When the waves began to bore him, he occasionally checked on Patamon down below. His mind wandered to the others momentarily, and he found himself drifting off to sleep once he got to Davis.

As his eyes began to close, he smiled slightly at the sheer craziness of a plasma cannon blowing the crow's nest to kingdom come. What a strange dream he was having. It was a little painful for a dream, though, what with that wooden board that fell and cracked his arm. What was that screaming noise, anyways? "Sweet Coney Carbuncle!" T.K. cursed as he snapped to his senses and wondered briefly what on earth he had just yelled that for.

The ship was under attack by something, and now his arm was broken. "Patamon!" He called in a panic as he scrambled to find his staff and heal his arm. As he swirled his stick around his wounded arm a white light wrapped itself around his arm and he felt his bone slipping back into place and mending itself. "Okay," he whispered in a panic, "I guess now I know how to do that."

Patamon, as it turned out, was the screaming noise. He had begun wildly flying about screaming for T.K. as soon as the enemy ship fired on them. Speaking of the enemy ship, T.K. figured he had better assess the situation before he planned his counter attack strategy. When the simple action of turning his head was performed, however, T.K. quickly decided there was a terrible imbalance of technology in this game.

The enemy ship was easily five times the size of his, and appeared to be a solid steel battleship loaded with more guns than a secret agent…A secret agent who was also a cowboy from space with hidden compartments for guns. A space cowboy agent who was in the space army and drove a space tank that also had a lot of guns, and that was on a space ship full of space tanks just like it, which itself was on a bigger space ship full of those smaller ships. T.K. noticed he had been thinking about this for a full fifteen seconds, and promptly decided to turn his counter attack strategy into an escape strategy.

"Speed up you hunk of junk!" He yelled, waving his staff in every which way, trying to get the ship to speed up. "Oh man, there's no spell for that!" He growled in anger while stomping his foot. "Patamon, where are you?!" He called once again. He then noticed the screaming had stopped and began worrying for his little orange friend. As he looked about he suddenly realized that Patamon was above him, and fading fast in a very literal sense. Patamon seemed to be drifting in and out of existence.

"Patamon, what's happening to you?" He yelled. Patamon tried to respond but his words chipped in and out like bad reception on a cell phone. Finally, Patamon disappeared completely. "Patamon!" T.K. yelled to no one. Now was no time to cry; T.K. still needed to find a way to escape the crazy battleship attacking him. Within seconds, the Chikastutso took another hit with a loud popping noise and embers of fire threatening to set the whole ship on fire. "Hey!" T.K. yelled in anger. "What are you trying to hit me for?"

"For your own good!" Mimi called from her ship. Suddenly Mimi began to glow black and she jerked to the side calling out: "I'm trying to protect this world and _you_ stand in our way!" Mimi was completely unrecognizable to T.K as he now began loading the cannons with treasure in any attempt to damage her ship. "I'm just sailing!" He yelled back. "I'm not trying to hurt anybody!"

Mimi raised an eyebrow and turned her head in anger. She yelled, "I know you think that now, but you're going to cause a lot of damage if I don't bring you in. It's for your own good!"

"I'm going to need more of an explanation than that," T.K. pleaded. "Tell me who you are!"

"I wish I could, Richard!" She screamed and fired off another white blaze at the ship. "You'll thank me one day!"

"You're crazy!" T.K. yelled as he took shelter behind some barrels and slammed his fists on the ground. "If only I could fly this ship away, I could get away from her," He whispered. Just then the Chikastutso grew long orange mechanical wings and took to the bright blue sky. "Jumping Swimmon!" He yelped, "We're _flying_!" He laughed as the Chikastutso left the ground, causing the waters to boil and splash onto the enemy ship.

"Tanek never told me that he could fly!" Mimi groaned. "Somebody stop him, he's flying away!" She called to her fellow shipmates. "Can't we fly this boat?"

The soldier began turning some dials. "Yes ma'am, but we're still learning the secrets of this ship. It could be a few moments before we can figure out how to engage flight mode." He quickly made a call to the engine room to 'spread the wings'. Mimi assumed it was code, although after what she just saw it wouldn't have surprised her if this ship actually had wings. She looked around curiously at the dials, not quite knowing what they were for or why they were just turned. "Fine, fine. As long as we catch up soon." She whispered with impatience, knowing he couldn't hear her and not quite caring.

**It**** was January 25****th****, 8:30PM at the Kamiya household** and there was much commotion going on in the computer room as Izzy, for the past hour or so, had been trying to coincide his laptop screen with the Masterbox. He was trying to set up a quazi-camera system in which they could watch their friends in action. "Did it work?" Yolei squealed with excitement as she hovered around Izzy's laptop screen.

"Give me a second," Izzy said absent-mindedly. "I'm setting up the cameras so we can see where everyone is." Izzy fiddled around with some wires on Tai's new 24-inch monitor and a high-pitched buzzing was heard and the screen slowly appeared. The monitor would give them a choice on which character they would like to watch. "Prodigious!" Izzy exclaimed with great enthusiasm as he typed frantically on his laptop into Unlock's game code. "I have successfully set up a camera system _and_ merged Patamon with T.K.'s ship. I'm sure Patamon will come in handy this way."

"Wait," Joe interrupted. "So Patamon isn't going to turn back into Patamon?"

"Well," Izzy paused, "No."

Joe raised his eyebrow and walked up to the computer screen. He chose the option of T.K.'s viewpoint and looked at the morphed Pata'Pirateship and looked back at Izzy. "But what if the ship explodes doesn't that mean Patamon explodes with it?" Joe asked now in somewhat of a panic.

Izzy stared blankly at T.K.'s part of the screen and blinked a handful of times. "Yes." He said and then remained silent for quite some time. He looked around and watched his three friends eyeballing him as though he had two heads. Izzy gave a reassuring smile and said, "If T.K. doesn't treat that ship right then he could very well lose Patamon forever, considering as of now I don't have a way to bring Patamon back into the real world!"

"What?!" Came a collective yell from Joe, Yolei and Cody.

"Yeah" Izzy laughed nervously. "Maybe I should send him a virtual note?"

"Sounds like a good idea," said Cody. "Don't you think so, Yolei?"

"Yup!" Yolei grinned, "Don't you think so, Joe?" But Yolei's question was only met with silence. "Don't you think so, Joe?" Yolei repeated. Annoyed that Joe wasn't responding to her, Yolei turned around from watching Izzy on his computer and looked at Joe, who was staring at Mimi frightened and whose jaw was dropped from here to Hawaii. "Joe, what's wrong?" She asked as all the children turned to look at Mimi.

"Her... H-h-her ... help her!" Joe yelled as he watched Mimi's visor begin to spark sporadically. Mimi then began to convulse and unconsciously scrape her nails against her visor. "Izzy!" Joe shrieked, "Little help?"

Izzy quickly turned from Mimi and looked back to his computer. Hitting a few buttons he brought up Mimi's vitals and said, "Everything looks normal... I don't understand." He turned back around and walked up to Mimi, who was still scratching at her visor.

"Izzy, fix her!" Cody yelled.

"There's no Manuel on this, okay?" Izzy yelled. "Give me some time!" Izzy was now beginning to feel the pressure from his friends. "Her vitals are fine, this doesn't make any sense." Izzy clicked the option to watch Mimi on Tai's computer and was unnerved to find that the option wasn't available. "Uh oh," He said nervously. He turned to his friends, hoping they didn't notice. He quickly closed the screen and turned his laptop screen down.

"Uh oh, what uh oh?" Yolei asked walking up to the screen. Upon noticing the blank screen where Mimi's viewpoint should have been, she repeated Izzy's "Uh oh!" and the others ran over. Joe ran over to Mimi and held her arms down, which proved an easy task, as Mimi was not the athletic type. Once her arms were down there seemed to be a peace that came over her and she stopped trying to move.

"Joe!" Yolei yelled, "What did you do?"

**It**** was day two in the desert plane of Zebien.**Tai and Matt stood in front of a desert plane, which only featured mountains of sand for them to look at. The pair had acquired Camel's, which the King of Zebien let them borrow. Tai told him that the other camel would be for the princess to ride back on, which worked out well for him, as, telling the king that he was carting around a ninja wanted for regicide probably wouldn't have flown so well. "So, left or right?" Tai said with a grin as he mounted the Camel.

Matt sighed, realizing this would be a very long adventure. "How about forward…"

"Excellent!" Tai shouted. "Onward hoe!" He yelled while hitting the sides of the Camel.

"Yeah…" Matt rolled his eyes "Onward…"

As the pair trotted along the desert planes, Tai couldn't help but notice the sour look on Matt's face. Tai sighed and with a burst of energy he said, "Come on, man, have a little more enthusiasm!" He tilted his head downwards and saw no change in Matt's expression. "We're going to go save a princess," He paused, "A princess!" He reiterated. Matt pouted as his camel walked along the forever desert. He looked at his wrist and then back to the furry creature's neck. He sighed and mumbled, "I missed my gig."

The air was silent for a moment until Tai quietly said, "Matt?"

Matt looked over at Tai and said, "Yeah?"

"You're not wearing a watch," Tai said.

"So what?" Matt yelled defensively, suddenly feeling overprotective of his band and his gigs. "I always know when I missed a gig," He paused, placing his hand over his chest as he closed his eyes. "It's in my heart."

"Ooh, that's so romantic!" Tai mocked in a high-pitched voice.Two hours later, Matt and Tai had stopped riding on camels and were now on foot, traveling into the randomness that was a very sweaty, very scorching nowhere. Tai wiped the sweat off of his forehead and turned to his partner with a pleading look in his eyes.

"Good going," Matt scolded.

Tai laughed and defensively said, "What?"

"You scared the damn camels away!" Matt yelled trying not to rip out his hair. Traveling with Tai was proving increasingly frustrating. "Okay Tai," He reasoned calmly. "Let me play out a scenario for you: Two people are traveling down the desert planes on camels, when they are confronted with five large sandworms. The twosome steady the camels and ride away to safety."

Tai nodded, still with laughter hiding in the creases of his lips. Matt held up a finger before Tai could speak and said, "Now let me play out _our_ situation: Two people are traveling through the desert on camels, when they are confronted with five large sandworms. The idiot of the two, jumps off his camel, dragging his other, unfortunate partner, off his camel. The first idiot screams "Cool, man!" as the other turns just in time to see both the camels run off into the distance, with all of their belongings dragging behind." Matt sighed and said, "Our weapons, food, gold… _everything_!"

"Okay man, I get it." Tai said with a nod. "But let's face it here; I'm not the only one to screw up on this little mission of ours."

Matt huffed, "Oh, so now everything's my fault?"

"I never said that!" Tai defended as he continued to walk, his head down towards the sand. "I just said that _I'm_ not that _only_ one to have messed up in here!"

Matt nodded and laughed out of frustration. "Really, well you tell me, Tai, what have_ I _done?!"

Tai then said, "You've caused a lot of trouble, is what you've done!" He argued. Tai marched up to Matt in the most obnoxious way he could and grabbed the 'kings to kill' list out of Matt's shirt pocket. "Regicide? Come on, Matt. Regicide!" He stressed again, as this was clearly his only argument.

"Well Tai, it's not like I planned on killing a bunch of stupid kings in the first place!" Matt said. Tai clenched his fists and raised his head as they walked. "Well it's not like _I_ planned on the Camel's running away!"

"Then why'd you get off your Camel?" Matt yelled. He continued to roll his eyes as Tai argued that it wasn't every day that you see sandworms. Feeling extremely fed up with Tai and his excuses, Matt yelled, "All right, that's it!" and clenched his fist as he swung a punch. Tai took the punch in the face with little groaning and then pushed Matt into the sand. "What's that for?" Matt yelled, "Can't fight it out like a man?"

"No, I could… but," Tai said nervously as he looked behind Matt at the black castle before them. Matt also looked at the castle and the two then turned their attention to the sand, where words were being written out of nowhere.

All who have come to oppose me will die.

There is no one alive who shall defeat the likes of me.

Go back where you came from, newcomers.

Matt's eyes widened and he looked over at Tai as both finished reading. Tai shifted uncomfortably and kicked some sand over the note. "I don't think she's here!" He said while sweating profusely. Matt replied, "Yeah, me neither!" And both boys took off running.

**January**** 25****th****, 6:30PM at the Kamiya household**.Izzy hooking up the monitoring system proved useful in watching the progress of their friends, the only downfall in the system was the time difference. It had taken Izzy almost a half an hour to figure it out. He had concluded that it stood as an hour for a day. At this point, he couldn't say if the similarities between this new world and the Digital world were purely coincidence or not. All he knew was, because of the time difference, they were only able to see one scene of their friends every couple of minutes, and Izzy would have to accept the invitation to watch through his laptop. Currently they were watching Ken, who was looking very misplaced as he ordered around his troops. Yolei could only imagine Ken's distaste for having to order around an army again.

"Hey!" Izzy grinned and did a close up on Ken. He zoomed in on his astonishing armor and mechanical parts. Izzy's heart skipped a beat as he looked at the high tech metals that his friend was engulfed in. "His character must be a space-bot!" He cheered as he zoomed out from the images of Ken. He added, "And those are his high tech servants, sent from the space lords, Zashneb!"

Joe shivered and looked at the screen, his hairs standing on end as he repeated, "Zashben?"

"Neb, not ben…" Izzy said as he shook his head. "Does _anybody_ know aliens these days?"

"As long as they stay away from me!" Joe said as he backed away from the computer, taking focus on the console. The black color, if possible, seemed to have been dulling for the past few hours. Joe then focused his attention back on Mimi, who had not had another freak out since her first episode. They still had not been able to access her information or camera and were no closer to figuring out the mystery.

It wouldn't be long until they had.


	5. Chapter 5 : Hacking the World

**CHAPTER FIVE**

**Hacking the World**

**It was day two in the desert plains of Zebien** and Matt and Tai were sleeping peacefully. Keyword: _were_.

Matt rolled over in the sandpit he and Tai had dug. He was hardly asleep, unlike his comrade who was snoozing like a baby. The pit was about six feet across both ways and took two hours to dig, as there was a sandstorm currently, which had been ongoing for three hours. Both boys buried themselves underneath the sand, minus their heads. The desert was scorching hot, but the sand underground was wet, providing some form of coolness. "I want more blankets." Tai grumbled in his sleep as he grabbed some of Matt's sand off of his torso area and packed it onto his own. "Thank you." He snored.

Matt rolled his eyes and turned over so he could see Tai. Matt couldn't help but think how stupid Tai was, but didn't have the time to make a remark as when he looked up he saw a huge sandworm staring back at him. "Uh, Tai!"

Tai opened his eyes and groggily said, "What is it Ma-" Tai finished the rest of Matt's name with a scream as he looked up and saw a massive sandworm. "A sandworm!" He screamed at the top of his lungs.

"Yeah, no kidding!" Matt yelled back.

"Oh man!" Tai yelled as they both scrambled around the sand. He turned to Matt and said, "I think this is one hole we're not going to dig out of!" Both squirmed to get out of their tightly packed sand beds, after doing so, they ran like they never had before. Before they could get two feet, a worm leaped forward and tackled Matt to the ground. Matt held its head back with his protected hands as it viciously tried to bite at his face.

The worm was large and white, almost like a maggot. It had various spines, almost like a dinosaur, that went across its many rings. Its face held only a giant black eye and ferocious fangs, which were dripping green oils. After taking a close look at the hideous creature, Tai scrambled for his sword, upon pulling out the sword, encrusted with hundreds of gems and shining like the blazing sun, he ran to the worm and began slashing. In the back of his mind, he was flashbacking to the Digital World and some mistakes he had made involving the lives of Digimon and how he failed to acknowledge their reality.

Even so, as Tai's sword struck and eviscerated the worm, he couldn't help but feel proud. "Awesome!" Came an invigorated, raspy yell from Tai.

At Matt released his grip from the worm and ran from it, he raised both eyebrows at Tai and raised his arms in defeat. Hoping Tai was taking all of this seriously, and knowing he wasn't, Matt yelled, "_Awesome!_? Are you freaking' insane?" He gasped for air, "We almost _died_!"

Tai yelled and swung his sword in an air fight against no one. He smirked and said, "You're just jealous 'cause I beat him and you didn't!"

Enraged, Matt went to yell at Tai, but upon seeing what was behind him, Matt only said, "Oh yeah?" and feeling confidant and cocky, Tai yelled back, "Yeah!"

"Well, if you're so great," Matt paused as he calmly pointed behind Tai. "Beat them," Matt said calmly as he pointed to eight more sand worms that had come up from underground. Their teeth stained with green globs of mucus being drooled and spewed everywhere. For every tooth it had, it had three eyes that, much like the mouth, produced a green colored liquid. The eight tails smacked against the desert sand causing the ground to shake, and each time they would do so, the boys would fall.

Tai pulled out his sword again and yelled, "Don't worry Matt it's just your average garden worm!"

"What kind of topsoil are _you_ using?" Matt yelled back and stared up at the worms in fear.

Two sandworms bellowed, once again causing the earth to shake. As it looked like all was lost for the pair, they both looked up and caught the glimpse of something falling. It landed with a large crash and left both boys temporarily deafened. It appeared to be a disheveled space ship or some such thing. It appeared badly damaged, but neither boy minded, as it landed right on top of the sandworms. Tai opened his eyes and looked up at the very frightening, very angry cyborg emerging from the ship. He slowly turned his head to Matt and yelled, "Run!"

From the rubble appeared a black-haired cyborg being, damaged, with a large gun on his arm. "Tai, that's like those guys who were trying to kill me before," Matt whispered, "The guys who chased me into that sewer thing!" Having now alerted Ken that he had in fact chased down the right person, Ken yelled, "You're under arrest!" Weakened, with empty threat in toe, he aimed his gun at them. He then yelled, "Put your hands over your head and kneel down!"

"Screw that!" Tai yelled. Though bleeding, he felt invigorated and very frightened. "Let's run!" Tai yelled again, clutching Matt's arm, urging him to go foreword. Matt however, was already on the ground with his hands over his head. "Shut up!" Matt whispered through gritted teeth, saying, "Are you crazy?"

Ken stood before them, gun aimed and waited to see if the boys would run, though before he could do anything, his vision wet dark and he became very dizzy. "Don't move," He gargled, "I may be… blacking out, but I bet backup will be here… any… minute." With that, Ken was on the ground. Matt tiptoed over to him and checked him out. "He's out cold!" He called to Tai.

"Whoa." Tai mumbled under his breath, "Lucky break."

"Not for him," Matt smiled as he looked back down at the unconscious bot. Quickly their luck changed as Matt looked over to the crashed airship and saw chariots hovering in the sky, shooting down at Matt and Tai. "Luck's about to change!" Matt yelled as he looked back at Tai.

"Forget about luck," Tai yelled back, "Let's run!"

**It was day two and Davis and Kari were still in the middle of nowhere**."My back hurts," yelled Davis from the cockpit of his Mech. He had been working for hours trying to fix it and found various awkward body positions to which he could access the main power supply of SuperDavis, all back breaking and highly uncomfortable. Quickly after he started, he began to find the task increasingly difficult without any tools. "It's too bad there's no shop nearby, I'd like to pick up some tools."

Kari sighed as she looked up at the mid-day sun. Though usually Kari didn't care for appearances, she was at least happy she was getting a good tan out of all this waiting around. "Do you even know how to _use_ tools?" Kari asked with a bored tone to her voice.

"I'm not stupid," Davis pouted as he once again moved out of an uncomfortable position. He turned to Kari and lectured, "You know, maybe if you'd actually tried to _help _me instead of just sitting there like a bump on a log, we could get some progress going!"

Kari sat stubbornly in the shade for a moment before she realized she was being a bit unfair to Marth. "I'm sorry," she sighed heavily and stood up, wiping dirt off of her soft mesh skirt "You're right, I should help you."

"That's more like it!" Davis yelled cheerily.

Kari climbed up into the cockpit with Davis and squished beside him. She began to fiddle with the wires and match them up with the appropriate colors. The Mech seemed worn, like Marth had been using it for years. "How long have you had this… thing?"

"What, Super Davis?" Davis questioned and looked up at the ceiling, trying to decide an appropriate estimate. "I've uh, I've had him since, oh you know, the, the big," Davis fumbled over his words before concluding, "The big tomato shortage in the fall, that year." He wiped away some sweat and continued trying to fit the parts together. "Yeah, we've had some fun together. The pirates and all, and now look at all the fun we're having." He mumbled with the roll of his eyes.

"Wait..." Kari felt her heart sink with surprise. Did he just day Super Davis? That's what Davis named his toaster back home, and most all of his inanimate belongings. "Super Davis?" She repeated, "Where'd you come up with a name like that?" She smirked.

"Well, it was a toughie between some top notch names," Davis grinned, "But Super Davis reminds me of this guy I once knew."

"Oh yeah?" Kari giggled, "Tell me about this, _Super Davis_."

Davis then blushed as Kari leaned her body against the wall of the cockpit, resting her arms on one of the screens. "Well," he scratched his head, trying to pick out his best qualities. "He's a pretty great guy, there's a lot to say about him. He plays sports. Yeah. Sports with his feet, you've probably never heard of that before, but he's top of his game, nobody can beat him, not even the great Ichijouji" He bragged. "And all of the, uh, _maidens_ in the town really like this Super Davis, but he only has eyes for this one special lady."

"Oh yeah, and what makes her so special?" She said, narrowing her eyes at him with a pleased smile.

"Lot's of stuff," He nodded "Firstly, she's totally hot!" Kari furrowed her brows at the slightly sexist comment and hit Davis lightly on the arm. "But she's nothin' compared to you. Yeah, she couldn't hold a candle to you Viv!" He grinned. "I mean, you're so nice and caring and pretty and just a really special girl. Plus I don't have to compete with T.K. for your affections!"

Kari didn't know whether to feel flattered or offended. Feeling confused, she said, "So you're saying that this girl _isn't_ kind, pretty and special?"

"Well yeah she is," He blushed and said, "For Super Davis, but I mean, she's taken."

Kari raised her eyebrow and asked, "Taken?" Davis grinned, now feeling quite proud. He thought of all the great stories he could tell Viv about his and Kari's 'relationship' but instead all he said was, "Yeah, she's property of Super Davis!"

"_Property_?" She repeated, now deciding to be offended. Davis merely nodded, not seeing a problem with his words. Eventually he caught the displeased look on Kari's face and tried to, unsuccessfully, backtrack his thoughts by saying, "Yeah, or whatever those couples are callin' it these days."

Kari moved from the wall and sat back in the cracking leather seat, crossing her arms she said "Yeah, whatever they're calling it..."

**It was day two in Tanek's Keep and Sora** had become restless being cooped up in her chamber. Now and then, Tanek or Kanzas would enter the room to give her a meal. They seemed to take turns. She wasn't sure whom she preferred, as Tanek was obviously an evil madman out to kill her, but Kanzas usually gave her bone chilling stares and had a generally creepy atmosphere to her. Today it was Tanek's turn. He had slipped into the room and lay down a plate with strange, unknown meat on it and two squares of toast. He seemed to be in a hurry.

Before he could leave the room, Sora decided she might speak to him. "Where is my knight or whatever," Sora whined. "Shouldn't I be rescued or something?" At hearing this, Tanek whipped his cloak around his body and stared blankly at her. He did it for quite some time, which completely spooked her. To top it off, when he sensed her fear he smiled ever so slightly. A kind of creepy, mad scientist smile that reminded her of the time Izzy drank all those energy drinks. "Are you afraid?" He asked.

"Wouldn't you be?" She snapped back, feeling the need to defend her emotions.

"It's perfectly normal," He stated matter-of-factly. He then said, "I know Matt and Tai are feeling quite afraid." His held his head up high and looked down at her with a piercing stare, still seemingly detached from the moment.

Sora swallowed hard and quietly asked, "Who _are_ you?" He knew their real names, which freaked her out more then the time she heard Gabumon singing oldies hits in the shower. She figured either Tanek had been the one who'd sent the letter or he was somebody in real life that knew them and was using this game as some sick sort of revenge. Either answer truly scared her. "Are they okay?" She asked.

"They came here to save you but then took one look at the tower and decided you weren't here," He smiled. "As a matter of fact, I believe they are very near here." He said, pointing out the window. Far in the distance, she could see Matt and Tai, as well as a pile of rubble and a lot of chariots, going in the opposite direction. Before she could yell out the window, Tanek closed the wooden window covers and locked them, ensuring there would be no rescue as of yet.

"It seems your friends chose to ignore what really matters," He paused and looked up at Sora. The look in her eyes made him feel strange and angry as she said, "Life according to Tanek."

"To me," he confirmed, "Their deaths are just one less waste of my time." He then hovered over her and instead of giving her a threatening stare, returned his face to that of calm displeasure. He concluded, "You know nothing of how things run."

"Maybe not, but I know my friends." She looked up at him with a new sense of determination in her eyes and spoke, "I know my friends wouldn't just leave me here unless something seemed wrong. These are people who care about me, and they wouldn't let some jerk like you stop them from doing what was right." Having said that, Sora was still fighting the urge to scream about the incompetence of her best friend and boyfriend.

She then shouted, "Well now what?" She then thought for a moment before concluding aloud, "That's not good for me or for you, now I don't get saved and you have no one to fight!"

Tanek turned from the window and walked past Sora. "I'm afraid you have me all wrong, Sora." He paused, walking to the cold wooden door, his hands fixed over the lock. He turned back to her and coldly said, "It doesn't matter if they come or not. I'm not looking for a fight, I just want you all out of my world. If they don't find us, we will find them."

Sick of the secrets and excuses, Sora bluntly asked, "Just what is that supposed to mean?" She paused and then asked, "Who is '_us'_? Me and you?"

He moved his index finger back and forth and whispered, "On the contrary…"

**It was day two on the Pirate Ship Chikastutso** and T.K. walked around his now water bound ship aimlessly as he reflected on the mad woman who had been so dead-set on attacking him. He had stopped the ship from flying as soon as he got away. It was draining his power supply like crazy, so now he was back to a normal floating-in-water ship. He could sense a headache coming on from all of the explosions. The waters were glowing with rain.

The whole world was changed. T.K looked down at the control screen and hit the Autopilot selection. He then walked inside of his cabin to shield himself from the rain. The ship probably knew where he was supposed to go better than T.K. did. As he lay in his comfortable bunk, his thoughts drifted to his brother, his friends and Kari's whereabouts, if they were okay. He wondered what characters they had gotten and pondered furiously trying to figure out if this new existence was enticing or just exhausting.

The thunder boomed and shook the cabin. It was extremely annoying and hurt T.K.'s already aching head. Spiders were hiding in every crevice of the creaky wood cabin. They were creepy green spiders with extra long mechanical legs. T.K. shuddered and squished one with his fist. The spider lay dead for a moment before springing back to life. The spider's legs began to grow until it reached three feet. The spider was now looking quite displeased as it lunged at T.K. "I'm sorry. I really didn't mean to squish you I swear." He paused and chuckled nervously, "Twitchy wrists, you understand!"

Seeing that his lame excuse wasn't faring well with the non-English speaking spider, T.K decided the only thing left was to resort to battling. While readying himself to run up to the beast, T.K. was rudely interrupted by a large green goop being shot at him that, while looking harmless, hurt quite a bit. It felt like T.K. was living smack dab in the middle of the alien-bee-hive Izzy had spoken so creepily of.

T.K. felt paralyzed and could not fight. He could feel his strength dropping like Davis' self esteem after battling Ken on the soccer field. The green metal monster began walking up to T.K. and looked as though it was about to eat him when suddenly a blue bomb dropped from the sky, exploding his enemy into a zillion gooey pieces.

T.K. fell out of his paralysis and looked up and saw the same battleship from before, with the same crazy woman in it. He noticed that the battleship was now flying. Eight large thrusters and an uncountable amount of smaller ones were sticking out at different angles from the ship. "Who's side are you on, anyway?!" T.K. called from below.

Mimi huffed and paced her ship quickly. "You have to be more careful than that!" She called to him in a very motherly, lecturing fashion. She wondered if Tanek would be displeased if he learned she had just saved him, but she couldn't just let him get attacked by that oversized bug. Then again, it's not like Tanek wanted him brought back lifeless anyway. Mimi felt oh so very confused. "I saved you!" She cheered.

T.K. raised his eyebrow and grabbed his staff. Equally confused he yelled, "Yeah, I know!"

"Well," Mimi said as she wisped her hand through her long blue locks. It was back to business, and saving T.K. was top priority right now. She decided to suck it up and put on a fierce face as she yelled, "Don't you have any crewmen with you?"

"No, it's just me down here." T.K. paused and then calmly asked, "Why did you attack me before?"

"You're alone?" Mimi turned around and signaled her crewmates to return the Silver Rose to the water so she could take another good look at T.K. She was now feeling even more confused about the information Tanek had given her. T.K. didn't seem to be different or evil at all. "So where're ya headed?" She asked curiously.

"South," He responded, throwing caution to the wind. "I need to find a town and gather some things before-Hey wait!" He said, now realizing how irresponsible he was being. "I'm not telling you this. Why do you even want to know, so you can follow me or something?"

"No silly, I want to _help_ you!" She responded cheerily.

Before T.K could say anything, his ship began sprouting what he would later refer to as his 'boom cannons', an offshoot of Patamon's boom bubble. Patamon was feeling protective of T.K, and rather than hurting the crazy sorceress next door, he shot the boom cannon, launching Silver Rose far away with bubble explosions lighting up the storm-ridden sky.

Mimi jolted at the hit and all the crewmates smashed to the side of the ship. Mimi stood back and fumed with black energy surrounding her. "Is everybody alright?" She called and raced to help her new friends. "Back to the keep!" She demanded, "Somebody give this ship some new digs!

**It was still day two and somehow**, Matt and Tai found themselves in the Kingdom of Ruelah. How they had escaped the fleet of angry chariots was beyond them, and they personally didn't care. Matt and Tai woke up in bunks similar to the ones at the Inn but a lot harder. Matt's arm had been wounded, presumably by the cyborg army, it hurt just like it would in real life. "I feel like a circus freak!" Tai said as he looked around at bars going up and down the room, they were clearly in a prison. The room seemed normal enough. There was a toilet, a bunk bed and a… skull!

"I think circus freaks have it better then we do, Lizard-boy!" Matt chuckled.

"Hey," Tai protested, "If I'm lizard-boy then I guess that makes you the bearded lady." He laughed. Matt rolled his eyes and shook his head as he speculated the room. Annoyed, he said, "I'm so glad you can find humor in this situation."

Tai raised his eyebrow and argued, "Hey you started it!"

"That's so not the point right now!" Matt argued as he walked over and kicked the skull across the cell and watched as it shattered against the cement walls, inside was a note written in blood. Matt stood over it not sure whether to feel horrified or intrigued. "How original…" He said as he stared down at the bone fragments. He looked down at the note and then up at Tai who appeared to be chuckling. "Something funny?"

Tai shook his head and said, "No." After a few awkward moments of Tai vigorously scratching at the prison wall with his fingernails as a form of escape he said, "I wish there was some way out of here. Like maybe a spoon, a sign, something written in blood even!" He yelled wistfully.

Matt rolled his eyes and said, "Tai, we have a sign." He paused and waited for Tai's response, but only received Tai curiously staring back up at him. "You know the skull that broke and revealed a fresh note, written in blood?"

"Oh yeah!" Tai cheered as he ran to the note. Grabbing it he asked, "Should we read it?"

"Yeah," Matt nodded. "You read it. I'm not going anywhere near that thing!"

Tai rolled his eyes and mocked, "You're just scared, scaredy-cat. It's just a game, geez."

"Just a game?" Matt said as he pointed to his wounded arm, trickles of blood seeping through the badly tied up bandage. "Why don't you start taking thing's seriously, Tai?" He huffed at his partner's naivety and lectured, "It's not _just a skull_ and I certainly don't think it's _just a game_. Personally, I think it's an alternate universe, just like the Digital World, and just like the Digital World we should be taking it seriously and really trying to help!"

Tai wasn't quite sure what to say. Matt was probably right. Tai headed over to the skull, which disappeared after he'd smashed it. He picked up the note and read it aloud; "It says, 'Hey you guys, I don't have the hang of this yet, but it looks like Matt could use one of these, good luck!" Tai smiled as a potion appeared in his hands and looked over at Matt; "Signed Izzy!"

After discussing the many possibilities of Izzy's involvement in the game, the cell became silent once more. From the guards in the halls, Matt and Tai gathered that there was a trial held to decide the fate of Matt. Apparently, the judge had a servant set up the projector and the whole room watched as it showed Matt run up and slay the king, taking his sword and slaying the rest of the troops who tried to stand in his way. Matt's fate was sealed as they heard a guard confirm Matt had been found guilty. At hearing this, Matt couldn't help but get a sick feeling in his stomach, worse then that time he licked his mom's deodorant on a dare.

The dungeon was dingy and rusted through and through. Tai looked the room up and down and thought that whatever kind of establishment this jail was inside of could use a dusting and a paint job. Tai scraped his fingernail against the bars, collecting mounds of dirt under his nails. "I never thought I'd say this, but I sure could go for my moms home cooked dinner right about now," Tai said, sighing and longing to be outside again, on his way to save the princess and see the rest of his friends.

"I'd rather eat mold," Matt said as he looked to the corner of the cell at the green fuzz collecting near the toilet. He then felt his stomach turn and regretted saying anything about mold. Tai searched around and finally in the damp corner of the cell where he had just spent the past two hours. He found a bone fragment just small enough to be useful.

"I think all of our problems are solved!" Tai cheered.

Matt's face was overcome with a hope and a smile as he said, "All of our problems?"

"Well, not _all _of them!" Tai protested with a humorous roll of his eyes and said, "I'm not a miracle worker, Matt!" He then bent down to the lock and began using the bone to pick the lock. "I'm glad Izzy always forgets to bring his house key, otherwise I wouldn't have learned this little tidbit when I stayed at his house for the summer!" He mused as he picked the lock and dragged Matt out of the cell.

Getting out of the prison chamber was surprisingly easy, as there seemed to be no guards in sight. There were, however, strange pictures lining the halls of the cyborg man they had encountered earlier. As the pair began running through the halls, Matt noticed Tai was lagging behind. He turned his head as he stealthily made his way down the hall and noticed Tai shoving something in his pocket. "Really, Tai?" Matt whispered in sarcasm. "Stealing?"

Tai blushed and argued, "Souvenirs!" He then proceeded to break a small statue off of a mantel and store it in his boot. "And I mean," He paused and grinned bashfully, "These could be worth something, and I'm broke!" Matt shook his head in judgment but did not stop Tai from swiping various objects.

"So where to now?" Matt asked quietly as Tai slowly caught up to him.

Suddenly, heavy footsteps could be heard and an alarm began going off. Tai and Matt quickly turned around and caught sight of twenty cyborg men and their leader all standing before them. "Stop right there!" Ken shouted down the hallway. He began running towards them and felt confidant about victory when he saw that they were trapped in the corner of the room.

Matt looked over at Tai nervously and saw Tai gesturing with his eyes towards the window. He jerked his head to the left, right, and then nodded at Matt. However, Matt only stood their confused, raising his eyebrow. Tai repeated the motion and this time looked down the hall and widened his eyes at Ken. Matt shook his head as if to say 'I don't know what you're talking about' and elicited a loud yell from Tai, saying, "I said, we have to jump!"

"Oh, right!" Matt said nervously as he looked at the window and back at Tai. The guards were all looking at them as though they wouldn't dare jump off the ledge. Matt mustered the courage, held his breath and let go of all logic and said, "Let's jump!" He then grabbed Tai's hand and they went for the window.

**It was day two in Tanek's Keep and since Mimi's departure**, Sora had been thrown into a less than comfortable chamber. It was a small room with all large gray bricks and a stack of hay for bedding. She shivered and felt her skin rise with chills. The room was freezing with cold air and the sense of darkness. "You're kidding yourself if you think you're going to bring me down!" Sora yelled, her voice echoing throughout the whole castle. "You and your stupid magic can kiss my-"

"Kiss you?" Tanek appeared before her, centering in Sora's makeshift room. "My dear, I'm repulsed. Here I thought you and I had this hateful repertoire coming along and now I find you've been hiding your true feelings for me?"

"Don't flatter yourself!" Sora spat back. The pair then spent a few awkward minutes exchanging their most fierce glares. Sora was the first one to back down.

"That's all?" Tanek mused with no change in expression before he said, "That's your mightiest stare?" Sora turned around and sat on her haystack. She leaned her back against the brick wall and rested her chin in the palm of her hand. She looked Tanek up and down, as he stood before her in a very intimidating pose. His hair was dark and hung passed his ears, which accentuated his deep blue eyes. His jaw line was chiseled perfectly, you could tell that he was not much older than Sora, but still he seemed to have an investment of knowledge.

He had black pants on with no shirt, his cape flowed around his body and his pale chest was left exposed. On the left side of his torso there was a faded tattoo, she didn't know of what, but it was fairly large and jutted into three points. Then there was his sword, the final piece of his ensemble. She had heard him refer to it as the Lacryma. All over his body she could see scrapes and bruises and began to wonder how many times he had lost the curious _Unlock_ game, and to that extend if anyone had ever even beat the game before. "Hey," She said quietly.

"What is it?" Tanek responded, sounding neither eager nor uninterested. She looked up at him and wondered aloud, "If you know this is a game, why do you still try?"

Tanek furrowed his brows and questioned, "I beg your pardon?"

"Well as the villain you must know that the good guys always win," She paused, "So why bother trying?"

Tanek made his way to the door and took no time to ponder her question before he responded, "The role of villain and hero are all in the eye of the beholder. There is so little that you know." He paused to make sure she was still paying attention and then said, "Game, reality, the line is thin. If this were a game, you wouldn't feel hurt when engaging in battle." Walking back to her, he graze a small dagger against her arm, causing it to bleed ever so slightly. "But, if this were 'real-life'," He said, clearly un-amused with her questioning the world in which he was a part of. "Then you wouldn't have had to put a visor on to get here."

Sora fought off crying as she tightly shielded her wound with her hand. It was a light scratch and didn't so much hurt, but the shock took her off guard. "I... don't understand," She paused. "We _did_ use the visors, so this isn't real, it can't be."

"Perhaps," He said and nodded, throwing her a strip of cloth to wrap her cut. "It is not your role to decipher whether this is fact or fiction. It is merely your role to be a princess who's lost her way." Sora finished wrapping her arm and hung her head and lay down on the hay and drifted to sleep with no cares to Tanek's presence in the room. He wasn't out to harm her, and she felt strangely safe here, knowing that nothing was coming her way just yet.

**January 25****th****, 7:00 P.M. at the Kamiya Household** and within the past half hour, Izzy and the gang had stopped watching the monitor system so they could all take a snack break which consisted of pickled beets and bacon milkshakes, ala Mrs. Kamiya. They were all situated in front of their friends, sitting on yellow throw pillows. "Be careful not to spill. Bacon is so hard to get out!" Mrs. Kamiya called from the kitchen. The snacks were disgusting, but everyone appreciated Mrs. Kamiya's hospitality, especially Izzy.

"I don't know…" Izzy whispered to himself as he shook his head back and forth.

"You've been saying that for the last ten minutes!" Joe complained. "What don't you know?"

"I just… don't know" Izzy repeated, this time sounding somewhat annoyed. With that, Joe threw his hands up in defeat and then passed around the beets, snagging five. "I don't know what to do," Izzy complained. "I think they're in danger. They could really get hurt in there and we're just sitting here eating vegetables!"

"We've got to help them." Cody said while putting down his now empty glass, still stained with the hint of beige. Everyone seemed a little more on edge now with the idea that their friends could potentially die if they lost a battle or met the wrong crowd. Joe had been pacing around for the last half hour, Yolei fiddled on her computer trying to find a way to contact the players, Cody inspected the game console once more and Izzy was stuck with a blank stare, only breaking to say: 'I don't know.'

"This whole thing is giving me the creeps," Joe shivered. "We shouldn't have meddled. You know how I feel about meddling! This whole thing was a bad idea. Why do we want to help these people?"

"If we did it for the Digital World, why wouldn't we offer our services to this world, too?" Yolei lectured. Sometimes sensible Joe failed to be sensible.

Joe looked over at Yolei and reasoned, "If this world is real like we think it is, their uninformed decisions could actually hurt the world, not help it." He finally sat down in front of his friends and with a gesture of his hands, raising his index finger he said, "They make one wrong move… I mean look, Matt's killing kings, Davis is stealing from pirates, and we don't even know _what's_ wrong with Mimi! All of these things could be very harmful to Unlock's population!"

Yolei sighed, feeling somewhat like a child and somberly agreed, "Yeah I guess you're right. I never thought of it as meddling, I just thought of it as a game. I didn't even consider that our actions might be hurting them!"

"And what about Tai and the others?" Cody piped in. "They should know about our world theory, otherwise they could ruin everything!"

"Cody, you're a genius!" Izzy cheered.

Cody blinked a handful of times at the sudden outburst on Izzy's part and quietly squeaked, "I am?"

"Well, in this case, I am!" Izzy corrected, "But you've surely inspired me. Now I know what to do!" He yelled and vigorously typed at his laptop. "I'll send them all a message of our theories! I'll send T.K. a message through a treasure chest in the ship, Kari and Davis will get one in the sand, Tai and Matt can receive another skull message, I'll create a fake cyborg to tell Ken about it and, well, Mimi and Sora are on their own…but at least most of them will know!" He grinned. "And I will send them a bunch of equipment, too! I'll program the best kind of weapons and items I can think of and send it to them!"

"Izzy, slow down!" Joe cautioned. He set his beets on his plate and approached Izzy. "Don't you think that's a bit too much to send?" Before Izzy could correct him, Joe interrupted, "I know we sent the note and the potion and it worked out all right but what we're talking about is a _lot_ of messages. I mean maybe we should take it one step at a time, just tell one person, and send small things." He paused and then said, "You know?"

"Now's not the time to be safe, Joe." Izzy stated matter-of-factly and then turned back to his computer. At hearing this, Joe nearly dropped his milkshake like the hot melted bacon that it was and retorted, "Now is the _perfect_ time to be safe!"

"I know that," Izzy said and shook his head. He corrected, "But when my friend's lives lay in the balance I'm going to try to send them a message and all the items necessary to help them!"

"What?" Joe backed away and looked around at his friends to make sure he heard Izzy correctly. He backtracked and said, "Wait, now you're not even making sense! You say now is not the time to be safe, even though you know now is the time to be safe, and when it comes to your friends you're going to act crazy?!"

"Hey!" Izzy yelled back, saying, "It's a perfectly good idea and I am ninety percent sure that no harm will come to them! I mean if Patamon entered the game with no dismal reactions then I'm sure me sending a few notes and items won't hurt them. Think about it, we can send ourselves through the digital world with no harm done, and this isn't all that different."

Izzy then quickly brought up a sketchy chart of facts that he had made about the game and sending items and creating things to send inside. Joe skimmed over it and then looked back at Izzy and said, "I can't believe you're ignoring all caution!"

Just then, Mrs. Kamiya came in the room and picked up their plates and cups. "Caution for what?" She asked. All four children looked up at her and smiled large-teeth-baring-smiles.

"Caution for a, um, for a science project!" Joe smiled.

"Oh, wonderful!" Mrs. Kamiya cheered and took a seat on one of the cushions. "What is the project?"

"Well," Joe looked around the room nervously at anything he could make appear to be a school project and wished he could work better under pressure. Finally he said, "We are working on a project with a, um, a cockroach, yeah! You see we have to put the cockroach in a new habitat and monitor how it adjusts to the new living situation. We've already done that and it adjusted as best it could, but now we have to give it a nice leaf to chew on."

"Fascinating!" Mrs. Kamiya smiled. "What's the caution for?"

Joe scratched his head and looked nervously behind him at his friends. "Well Izzy and I are having a disagreement about the leaf. You see Izzy wants to give the cockroach eighty leaves all at once, and that could possibly kill the cockroach… Because if you know anything about cockroaches you know that, just like goldfishes, cockroaches don't know when they're full so if they eat too much they could _explode_!" He lied as he glared at Izzy. "I say we send in one leaf at a time until we know how much he will eat!"

"The problem with that is that according to my calculations the cockroach is in _dire_ need of _many_ leaves, so regardless of how many leaves we feed it, at least it will _have_ leaves!" Izzy spat back.

"Well," Mrs. Kamiya stood up, not wanting to get involved in the bickering. "I'm sure you boys will work things out!" She smiled and walked back into the kitchen all the while wondering: where _was_ that cockroach?

"Way to go. Now she thinks you're fighting!" Cody said.

"We _are_ fighting!" Joe said with a slight raise of his voice. He hung his head and felt badly that they couldn't seem to agree and said, "I don't agree with the way you want to do things, Izzy, I'm sorry!"

"Well it's too late anyway. I've sent all the items through my computer. It's done!" Izzy smiled triumphantly as the program accepted Izzy's new equipment for his fellow Digi-Destined. His smile quickly faded though as his computer screen began flashing red. A notice popped up which read: Unlock error imminent. Please unplug players and discontinue playing. Unlock error imminent.

"Uh oh."

**It was the dusk of day two in the Kingdom of Siah**. Davis and Kari had long since wandered off from Super Davis and walked miles back to the kingdom of Siah to find a mechanic who would sell the needed parts for the mech. As the kingdom came into view, the sun had set and everything went dark. All of the sudden, gray monsters with many eyes popped up from the ground and began attacking them. The gray beast leaped forward and tried to take a bite out of Davis' arm. Davis and Kari both began screaming at the sight. Kari quickly ran up and began slapping it on the nose, as this is what she was taught to do when a dog attacks.

"Are you even trying to help?" Davis scolded as he watched her slap the beast. "Stand aside and watch me work!" He said as he ran towards the creature and his arm-cannon began charging up in a light shade of blue. He could feel the energy pulsing through his arm, and his body began to shake. It felt like all of his blood was flooding into his arm. This was it. This is when he would charge his most triumphant attack.

Just as his arm opened to shoot, a chime played loudly from Davis' glove. On it, a small text box flashed which read, "Second Wind not engaged." Following the message, an almost invisible beam shot forth from Davis' arm. "What the?" Davis whispered as his face went red.

Just then, a million skulls began dropping from the sky, hitting Davis and Kari on the head until they were both knocked out. They woke up three hours later lying at the bridge of what seemed to still be Siah Kingdom. The skies were shaded purple and the clouds appeared to be made of various weapons. The grass was red and chipping in and out of vision. "Has the whole world gone even more bananas!?" Davis shouted while he looked around at his somewhat familiar, new, surroundings.

"Marth, what just happened?" Kari said as she stood up and rubbed her arm, flicking off the tiny bits of flaky grass.

"I don't know." Davis said as he shook his head. "Man, this is weirder than the time Veemon put a turkey on his head and pretended to be my aunt Betty!" He then shook his head and laughed, "Oh aunt Betty, can't keep off the hooch."

Kari hid a smirk from Davis and turned her head. She remembered that story of Davis' aunt. It scared and amused her, but that was all right, as those stories usually ended up being the best kind of anecdotes. In any case, if she had any question of this not being Davis it had just been overruled with that comment. "Are we still at the gates of Siah Kingdom?" She asked.

"I don't know." He paused. "I'll go check that wooden sign." As Davis strolled over to the introduction sign, he became very confused as he read its caption.

DAVISDAVISDAVISDAVI0DANGER000SDAVISDAVISDAVISDAVIS

Davis yelped in horror and Kari rushed over and yelled, "What is it?" As she approached the sign, she too realized something was terribly wrong. "Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore."

Davis looked at Kari, confused and looking slightly offended. He stared at her for a moment and then looked back at the sign. "Who's Toto?" Davis shouted, "And who's this Davio Dangeroose, and what does he think he's doing stealing my territory!"


	6. Chapter 6 : ? ? ?

**CHAPTER SIX**

**??**

**It was the dusk of day two **on the Silver Rose battleshipand it was the strangest thing. One second, Mimi had been speaking with the impressive army placed under her command, standing on the most advanced ship in the entire world. The next second, Mimi was speaking to the most mobile and articulate army of stacked chairs she had ever met, and she was standing on what she could only imagine was the most advanced flying pumpkin in the entire world.

"Blue?" A chair-stack called out to her. "Green, green, green yellow blue?" He finished with a curious tone. Mimi was quick to answer him the same way she had been answering him for the last four minutes.

"Stop saying colors and answer me! What happened to the ship? Why are you all chairs!?" She screamed. Her first guess had been that the chairs had simply mutinied against the crew and that now chairs ruled the ship. However, they obeyed her commands and spoke to her in pleasing tones. All they would say were color names, but it was enough for her to guess that they were her soldiers. Besides, there were no chairs like that on her ship.

"Orange green…purple?" It questioned in the same tone as before. It suddenly came to Mimi that these chairs/soldiers might not know that they were only speaking in colors. If she was the only one seeing and hearing things this way, they were going to think she'd gone mad. They were probably right.

"Uh, right. Look, I don't have time to answer questions right now, okay?" She started. She had to leave fast and gather herself, or else she would raise even further suspicion. "I'm going to my room, okay?"

As Mimi turned to the door, she came to notice that there was no door, and that she was still very much on a flying pumpkin. She had no idea where anything was. She could only guess at where she was going, and if she chose to feel her way around like a blind person then she was only going to look crazier. Mimi didn't know much about the army, but she knew soldiers didn't like having crazy Generals.

"Actually, I've decided not to do that. I'm gonna stand here and think, and I don't want anyone to ask me anything. Just go back to Tanek's castle so we can fix up the pumpkin. Did I say pumpkin? I mean ship. I said don't talk to me!" She yelled in a panic. The stacks of chairs quickly fled to what she assumed were their posts, and Mimi stared out into the incredibly messed up sea.

This whole situation seemed wrong to Mimi, not even taking into account the world's sudden unexplainable mutation. Tanek said T.K.'s ship would be easy to beat, but it had blown her back so hard that she thought her eyes might pop out; and she loved her eyes!

"Maybe I should get on his ship next time…" She mumbled to herself as she thumbed over her sword's ivy. She could probably defeat him in a fight and take him back by force, if she wanted. Clearly T.K. suffered from the same program Sora did. Why would he attack her? Some people couldn't be reasoned with, and Mimi did feel strong enough to take on the world. Why, she could probably lift that whole giant pumpkin!

Still… Mimi didn't want to attack her friends. Oh, this was so frustrating! T.K. was one tough nut to crack. He was like a walnut or…some other kind of nut. Mimi wasn't big on nuts. They had too much salt and not enough sugar. Sweet was really more Mimi's kind of food, although she had to be careful about that part of her diet. Too much candy and she'd have to go back and see Dr. Tibblet again, and he was as creepy an old man as they came.

"Maybe my dad was right. Maybe I do have ADD…" Mimi worried slightly as she sat down on the floor. Getting back to the Tanek's castle where she could watch Sora from afar would probably make her feel better, and this ship was clearly not as advanced as Tanek had lead her to believe.

**It was the dusk of day two in what Davis was sure was Siah Kingdom**, thoughthe more he sat here the more he realized something was amiss. The axe clouds were quietly rolling over the giant half of a squid in the purple sky. The small bugs made of crayons danced around in the red grass that couldn't make up its mind about existing. This would have been an average day if Davis and Kari had been in that dream Cody had after eating eight pounds of candy one rather delicious Halloween night. Alas, this was not the case, and so something was clearly wrong.

"Okay, what did you do?" Kari asked after analyzing the situation. It was clear that whatever was happening was Davis' fault. Well, maybe not, but blaming Davis usually helped relieve stress.

"Me? I didn't do anything!" He vigorously protested and said, "Well, at least I don't think I did anything. I guess it's possible that I'm so awesome that I made the sign jealous and it took my name, and then I made the sky and grass go crazy because my awesomeness was too much for them. In fact, now that I think of it, that's probably it! Oh, what have I done!? Darn my good looks, charm, grace, muscles, brains…" As Davis rambled on, it became increasingly obvious to Kari that this wasn't Davis' fault at all.

"Never mind, Marth. I'm sure it wasn't your fault." She sighed, rolling her eyes. "Let's just look around. I'm sure this is just part of the game."

Kari caught herself at the end of her sentence, but she couldn't correct herself now. Davis stood there, looking at her like she had just transformed into one of the many aunts he professed to have, but who she had ever actually seen. "Game?" Davis asked. His eyebrow rose as he struggled to wrap his mind around her comment. This was quite common for Davis.

"O-Oh…" Kari stuttered. "You know. This great big game we call life!" She exclaimed in an entirely too exuberant voice. It was one of the dumbest cover-ups she'd ever used, and she'd once used Mimi's green cover-up to hide a pimple! However, it didn't keep her from knowing Davis would buy it. He did.

"Oh, okay. Yeah, that's what I meant, too. I mean, I didn't say anything, but if I had then that would have been what I meant. I mean it's not like we're trapped in a video game or anything. What's a video game, anyways?" Davis stuttered, "Those kids today play too much of them, whatever they are. Wait, I'm not old, I'm just lying. No, wait, I mean… Let's look around!" Davis stuttered and babbled incoherently until finally reaching Kari's earlier conclusion. Then surely she will have fallen for his clever ruse.

"Uhh…sure." She said, only half understanding anything just said.

And so, they began exploring the town together. The town, if it were possible, was more screwed up than the sky. Doors were made of shirts and the boards and bricks of houses were made of assorted foods, which Davis had painfully attempted to eat. As it turned out, these things still felt and tasted like boards and bricks. Davis assumed that this was simply the nature of this new town.

Suddenly, they came upon a small flight of stairs. Normally, this wouldn't be of any particular importance. However, the stairs had somewhat of a familiar face to them. "Tai!" Davis screeched as he ran over to the stairs. The stairs, rather than being made of traditional brick, were flesh colored, with brown spiky hair jutting out of them. In fact, they were a bunch of Tai heads!

"Oh Tai, what have they done to you?" Davis whimpered as he hugged the stairs. "Tai, you never had a chance!" He yelled. "You didn't even get a character. You were just turned into stone!"

Davis had a thought, what if Tai's character wasn't a stone, what if an evil witch had cast a spell on Tai, and the only way to save him was to bring him to the enchanted woods and offer up a sacrifice in exchange for Tai's soul and body back? "I don't want to be a sacrifice!" Davis shrieked in terror. Kari gave him a very annoyed look and he composed himself. "I mean… we must save him!" He shouted with great resolve in his voice.

Although Kari was concerned about the fate of her brother, she took a deep breath and touched Davis on the shoulder. "Marth, I'm sure everything is going to be alright with your friend here… Maybe we'll come back for him after we get through this town."

Before Kari could make another suggestion, Davis began chipping away at the stairs with his gloved arm.

"What are you doing?" Kari huffed as she crossed her arms.

Davis couldn't hear Kari over his arm banging against the stone Tai heads and thus continued to bang. "Hey, I asked what you're doing!" Kari yelled even louder. Davis still couldn't hear Kari and mashed his arm harder into a jagged part of the rock. His arm proceeded to get stuck and panic set in. "Vivian, help me!" He called with fright in his voice.

Just then, Davis' arm-cannon began charging up the same shade of blue as before. "Oh great, _now_ what have you done?" Kari screeched.

"Oh man, I must have hit some kind of super charging button. Oh well, nothing's gonna happen anyway, it'll just chime and shoot a little beam." He shrugged, "No biggie."

"Well, if you say so…" Kari then backed away from Davis as he began shaking. His arm began trembling and he began to worry when he couldn't control it anymore. Just as his arm opened to shoot, a chime played loudly and the text on his arm read: "Second Wind not engaged. Go North." Following the message, a huge yellow beam shot out of Davis' arm shooting off to the north. The blast sent him flying backwards, all the way out of the town and back into the 'grassy' fields.

Kari yelled, "Marth!" and ran as fast as she could. She then began trying to find Davis while playing a twisted game of Marco-polo, which involved her yelling for 'Marth' and Davis gurgling every few minutes. "Marth, where are you?"

"There's a lot of grass," came his raspy response.

"Marth, cooperate!" She looked around the seemingly empty field and seen a glimmer of Davis' yellow goggles which were now frosted with dirt. She ran to him and sat him upright. "Are you alright? How's your arm?"

"I guess I don't know my own strength," he chuckled, followed by clutching his hurt arm. "I'm surprised it's still attached!"

"What _was_ that…?" She whispered, staring off in the direction of the Kingdom.

"Last time it said that the second wind wasn't around or something," Davis mumbled as he recalled the last time he'd tried to use his fancy, seemingly broken, arm cannon. He finished, "Now it's telling me to go north." She looked back at Davis and held a concerned look in her eyes. "You're not going to go, are you?"

"What am I supposed to do?" He said, "It's not like I'll be able to find Super-Davis very easily. The whole scenery has gone bananas!"

Kari rose her eyebrow half hoping Davis wasn't going to drag her into the mech mess and half surprised. She said, "You're seriously suggesting we go north and try and find this… second wind?" She paused, "What is it, and why do you even need it?"

Davis nodded and flashed a grin. "That's exactly what I want to find out, so, hurrah, let's go north!" He cheered. He began marching forward but stopped in his tracks and turned to Kari, asking, "But wait… how do know where north is?" Just as Davis became confused, he noticed a wooden sign in the shape of an arrow, which read 'North.' Davis grinned and chuckled, "Looks like my luck is changing!" The few seconds of silence were then interrupted as the beam from Davis' cannon had landed in the distance, causing a gigantic explosion of red smoke that formed in the shape of an arrow.

Davis and Kari exchanged a worried glance and Davis said, "I think my crazy cannon's trying to tell me something…"

"Yeah, that it has terrible indigestion!" Kari joked.

Davis smiled and said, "I think we should follow it."

Kari smiled, "Or give it some Pepto Bismal."

Before Davis could stand back on his feet, he saw a fleet of soldiers in the distance. They stomped in unison causing an unsettling rumble in the ground. Davis then thought out loud, "Hey, maybe they can help us!" Upon closer inspection, the soldiers all had Tai heads for bodies and turkey legs for heads! "There they are. There are the perpetrators!" They gobbled out. "Arrest them. Have their heads!"

Just then, a loud buzzing was heard and thousands of paper notes began falling from the sky. Kari sighed and looked at Davis, who was smiling sheepishly. Kari then whispered, "Could thing's possibly get any worse?"

**January 25****th****, 7:00 P.M. at the Kamiya Household** and Joe had been pacing around the room like a nervous hen. He had long finished his unappetizing yet highly healthy bacon, egg and banana shake. He shook his head frantically and held his hands over his stomach, which was hurting out of nerves and strangely not Mrs. Kamiya's recipes. "Things couldn't possibly get any worse!" He yelled dramatically. "Look what you've done!" He screeched in Izzy's direction as he inhaled from his asthma puffer.

"Cool it Joe, you're going to have a meltdown!" Cody insisted.

"Cool it Joe?" Joe repeated. "Cool it _Joe_?" He repeated, this time with added emphasis. He paced for a moment before he quickly walked up, towering over Cody and frantically said, "I'm sorry Cody but I can't quite _cool it_ when my friends are being melted away by error 404s!"

Izzy quietly piped in, "Actually this wouldn't technically be a 404 error."

Joe's eyes widened and a vein became very visible on his forehead. "Now is _not _the time!"

"Now is the _perfect_ time," Izzy mocked.

"Look you guys," said Yolei, "We've got at least one brilliant brain here, I'm sure we can all figure this out!" She huffed. "Now then, Izzy, what do we know so far?" The room was silent for a moment and Yolei readjusted her back as she sprawled across the orange carpeting. She looked at the old exercise bike that was stored in the corner of the room, covered in dust. She looked around at the dusty books collecting on the various bookshelves. Maybe Mrs. Kamiya should invest in a feather duster, or a maid.

"Well," Izzy finally spoke. "We've lost our connection with the camera view, but according to my calculations…" He typed away. "I think… I may have made a bit of a judgment error." He said, finally admitting to his recklessness.

"You think?!" Joe yelled.

Izzy nodded as though Joe was actually asking him a question and said, "I'm just working on getting a camera view. It seems my packages weren't received very well. The whole mainframe keeps trying to boot me, but… This is very strange." Izzy said.

"What's so strange about it?" Yolei said, sneaking a peek at Izzy's laptop screen. Izzy clicked and typed away trying to find the reason for the boot. "Well, I've overridden the actual mainframe's firewall… it's funny, it actually seems like _someone_ is trying to stop me. Like an actual person. I keep going through these firewalls like somebody is throwing them in my face. Very interesting." Izzy mused.

Cody then piped up, "Hey Izzy, maybe you should be working on a way to fix what you've done, instead of focusing on breaking back in." Cody looked up at Izzy and noticed his face beginning to turn white. Cody raised his eyebrow and said, "Izzy?"

"Guys," Izzy gestured his hands, calling everybody towards the laptop screen. "I think… we have an issue." Izzy then pointed his laptop screen, which was completely black, until a blue text box appeared which read,

"_I politely ask you to desist from your meddling in my world._

_If I witness any further interference, I will take matters into my own hands._

_Let's face it Izzy, you're becoming a problem_."

Izzy felt chills go down his spine as he turned his swivel chair to face his friends. He felt slightly embarrassed for what had happened, and to top off him screwing up a universe, he was now receiving E-threats… great, just great. But now wasn't the time to be discouraged. "Alrighty," said Joe as he flopped back down onto the yellow cushion on the floor, "They're doomed. We're doomed. Any second now you're computer will explode and we'll receive a ticking time bomb in the mail!"

"Quit being so dramatic!" Yolei said, "I'm sure Izzy has a plan, right Izzy?"

"Of course," Izzy said. He stared down at the drawer on Mr. Kamiya's desk and turned to his friends in a rather heroic pose he went to speak and then paused, he then turned off his laptop and declared, "Dinner break!"

**Day two was so much more complicated than day one**, at least Mimi thought so. She was thankful that day three was just around the corner. Mimi opened the large black door to Tanek's Keep and was relieved to see soldiers, and not colored chairs, walking around the entrance hall. Mimi smiled and looked up at the soldiers. They were so neatly dressed. Her mind began to wander as she watched them walking back and forth. She wondered: what do they do all the time? What do they think about while they walk? Do they have wives? What was their opinion of spray-on tans? Life here sure was a mystery.

Before entering the foyer where most of the living was done in this castle, Mimi stopped in her tracks as she heard Tanek speaking with Sora. She poked her head around the doorframe and listened in.

"What's your full name?" Sora asked, quickly followed by, "How old are you?" Tanek, though, was not paying attention, but rather he was pacing the room in a very annoying fashion. "Who is that girl that's wandering around here all the time?" Sora asked. Tanek wandered the room looking as though something heavy was weighing on his mind. His eyes were glazed over in a daze and Sora yelled, "Tanek!" to try and get his attention.

He walked over to her and sat down across from her on the leather and silver sofa. "Has she hurt you in some way?" He inquired as to her distaste for Mimi. It was hilarious, really, Sora disliking, or at the very least, fearing Mimi.

Sora shook her head and said, "She's just here and then not, here and then not, she's a regular Wizardmon and she's creepy too, just skulking around never saying anything. I mean, is she your henchman, or your girlfriend?"

Tanek smirked as he raised his eyebrow. "Jealous?" He said softly.

"Yuck. Don't flatter yourself!" She huffed. She then narrowed her eyes down to her tattered beige skirt and watched the tans and pink fabrics flutter from her shirt. She looked around the castle, barely moving her head. The walls were all black brick and there were windows without any glass, there were at least twenty open windows chilling up the place. There was a drawbridge inside of the house, it lead to a room she had never entered. The water underneath the bridge looked deep. It was a color and a texture that even Mrs. Kamiya wouldn't use for a recipe!

"What's in there?" Sora asked as she nodded her head in the direction of the drawbridge.

Tanek held his hand over his chin. He narrowed his eyes in her direction and then raised his head high. Standing up he whipped his cape behind him and whispered, "If you can't keep your curiosity in check then I have no use for you any longer." He then walked across the bridge and disappeared into the shadows.

Mimi was still watching from the hallway. She then entered the foyer and tried hard to heed Tanek's command of not talking to Sora, and there were so many things to tell her, too! A somber look overcame her and her eyebrows lowered. She hung her head and closed her eyes, letting her long black lashes rest on her rosy cheeks. When she opened them, she was greeted with Sora, staring awkwardly at her from the couch.

"Hello." Sora mumbled quietly. There was something terribly familiar about this girl. Even though she was incredibly creepy, Sora wanted to get to know her. "What's your name?" Mimi fought off the urge to smile and instead, stared blankly at Sora. Boy, she didn't look so evil from over here. Mimi shook her head and wandered throughout the castle and to her joy and dismay Sora stood up and began following her. "Where are you going?" Sora asked, but Mimi did not respond and instead headed for her quarters.

"Tanek went over the bridge," Sora said, "If you're looking for him."

Mimi did not look at Sora, but began turning the knob to her room. Before entering, she turned around and stood in the doorway, looking at Sora. Sora must have been very lonely, having to sit on a haystack and talk with guards all day, and with no cosmetics at that! Mimi offered a reassuring smile to Sora and before shutting the door she whispered, "You're going to be alright."

The next morning marked the dawn of day three. Mimi walked into the foyer and saw Tanek standing with his forehead leaning against the fireplace mantel, there seemed to be a glow about him that made her feel much less inclined to speak with him. "Tanek?" She piped up quietly. "There's something I wanted to talk with you about."

But Tanek did not respond.

"Um," Mimi murmured, figuring maybe some conversation might cheer him up from whatever was bothering him. "It's about the Silver Rose and, well, and some other things…" Still Tanek stood silent, unmoving, she feared he had died standing up. Creepy. She couldn't even hear a breath. She then became scared, wondering what she would do if he had just keeled over near the fire… Who would help her save her friends? She then walked over to him and touched his shoulder, "Tanek?"

He then jerked away from her and his eyes changed from red to blue. His skin was cold underneath her hand and she was taken aback as he yelled, "What?" his sentence echoing through the castle.

"Oops, sorry!" She giggled, "I know I hate it when people interrupt my Yoga, too, but this is important!"

Tanek shook his head and tried to calm himself. He composed himself and calmly said, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have shouted. What is it, Kanzas?"

She happily nodded and said, "Well it's about the soldiers you put under my command."

Tanek nodded with sheer annoyance and said, "Yes?"

"Well see, you didn't mention that after twelve hours they turn into chairs!" She smiled at her Cinderella-like situation and said, "There were still polite and obedient and everything, I think, but it just took me by surprise, that's all!"

"…Chairs?" Tanek repeated, suddenly feeling quite angry.

She nodded with a grin. "Yes. I mean, they are okay now, but on the Silver Rose they were chairs!" She watched as a very alarmed expression come over Tanek's face as he looked down at the skeleton key that began appearing on the chain around his neck. "Hey I didn't know you bought a necklace!" She cheered, "You should have invited me to come with you, I'm an excellent judge of fashion and taste; but that's okay, I forgive you. Just promise to invite me next time!" She said with a wink.

Tanek looked down and grasped his hand over the key. His eyes widened and his head jolted back up. "Not again…" He whispered as he began running to the drawbridge.

**Much had happened since Tai and Matt had attempted** leaving the Psynich prison. Tai woke up on a beach of purple sand and bunny face clouds. He found this quite perplexing. It seemed as though there was an explosion in the jail, as the last thing Tai remembered was running through the courtyard outside of the jail and then a bright light.

His eyes were burning but he wasn't tired. Maybe it was the wind, or the sucker punch from one of those cyborg guys that had something to do with it. The sand was warm on his face as he laid belly first into the sand. He cared not for the bugs that were crawling across him, probably burrowing their way into his skin. With the escape day that he'd just had, he didn't care about much right now. It appeared as though Tai had landed on a beach of some sorts. His face was dangerously close to the sea and the sand was tickling his nose. The water was green from the moss growing around the rocks and there were trees surrounding the whole area.

He looked over at Matt, who was sleeping and not too far away from where Tai was laying. His blonde hair was filthy with sand and dirt from throughout the day. He supposed they both blacked out after the ordeal with the bots. Tai looked back up at the very awkward sky, not a star in sight. In fact, the sky appeared to be sporting an odd checkered pattern these days.

He'd never been much with directions. They'd never find the North Star while he was on watch. He began to wonder if he'd ever find this princess of Zebien and what the ransom for her is. He wondered if there would be a reward…perhaps her hand? What happens if she isn't fond of this idea? Ah, no bother. Likely, she already has a boy-toy, someone smitten with her. After all, Tai didn't belong here. He was just the guy summoned from a different time, some hero destined to do what all the other destined heroes couldn't do, he guessed.

What was the deal anyway… evildoers kidnapping princesses? If Tai had any courage when he met him, he'd ask Tanek what the deal was. Or he would make Matt ask, or maybe… maybe he'd just forget it… save the princess and go home. Defeat 'ole Tanek and get on with it.

"You up?" Came Matt's quivering voice. The beach was very cold.

"I'm awake." Tai said quietly. His body tingled as he moved his arm.

"We'd best check around for that guy who was following us. Maybe we can get some answers?" Matt said as he sat up and brushed off the sand from his already dirty pants.

Tai and Matt wandered the beach and soon realized they were actually in the midst of a town. "A near gone fishin' town," or so said a very frightening, very toothless local old man. It seemed that Matt and Tai had brought a flood along with them to the town called Dorsal, as people were rebuilding their huts frantically and boarding up their windows.

"What happened?" Matt asked the man.

"And do you guys have any good restaurants that weren't destroyed?" said Tai.

Matt rolled his eyes. Tai could be so apathetic, sometimes. "Tai, could you stop thinking about food for two seconds and grow some compassion?" Matt disciplined.

The old man laughed and said, "This is Dorsal, a near gone fishin' town!" To that end, Matt and Tai then exchanged worried glances and turned back to the toothless chap. "Do you know where we can eat something?!" Tai said, rather loudly, as though talking to someone who wasn't speaking his language.

The man raised his eyebrows questionably and put both of his hands on his large gut. Shaking his belly fat he hollered, "Well, this _is_ Dorsal, a near gone fishin' town!"

"That's great!" Tai shouted in annoyance, "I love fish! Do you know where I could possibly _eat_ some?"

Just then, a man walked up to Matt and Tai. It turned out that they were all standing in front of the local bar, which, luckily for this strange, booze soaked man, hadn't been destroyed in the flood. The man was dressed in a black velvet suit with a red tie. This professional image was then crushed as he took a swig from the large bottle at his side and said, "You must be Matt, the ninja, the great hero." He smiled and shook Matt's hand.

"Oh great Matt, is this some guy who's royal father you whacked?" Tai said half sarcastic and half frightened that he would be right.

"How… how did you know my… I mean!" Mat stuttered. "Nope, not me, I've never heard of the guy." Matt said nervously as he smiled. "I'm just a traveler from the East."

"Never fear, Chandler is here!" The man said as he smashed his bottle 'o booze onto the ground. Matt and Tai could only assume the man standing before them was in fact Chandler. Either that or some being by the name of Chandler would magically appear any second. "That was a little frightening…" Tai whispered as he eyed Matt. "Well, that's very nice, uh, Chandler." Tai then extended his hand and shook Chandlers. "But we really should get going."

"Tanek brought upon the great flood, and I assume he's looking for you kids," Chandler said as he stumbled.

"What… did you say Tanek?" Tai asked.

The man stumbled about for a few minutes. While trying to retain his balance, he clutched onto a fence post outside the bar. He then began walking down a path towards a small hut. He turned his head and signaled with his hand for the boys to follow him. Tai eagerly began following the curious man until Matt grabbed his hand and smacked him across the chest. "What do you think you're doing, are you crazy?"

Tai looked around at the scenery, it seemed like a peaceful little… flooded… doomed town. He turned back to Matt and shrugged, "Just crazy enough?"

"This isn't funny, Tai. This crazy, drunken guy knows my name!"

"Yeah, exactly!" Tai cheered, "This is probably some awesome clue that Izzy has hacked for us. You should show more appreciation for your smart friends, like me!" He taunted. "And maybe he has food!" He called to Matt as he ran ahead.

The pair entered the strange hut that the man went into. If possible, it smelled fouler than the moldy beach they had been resting on earlier. The house consisted of grassy walls, a table, a bed right next to it and a fireplace. "Sit, sit!" The man insisted as he poured a brown liquid into two small glasses.

Placing the cups before Matt and Tai, the man said. "So you're the next on the docket, hm?"

"I… don't know what that word means," said Tai.

"The chosen ones…" The man said, gulping away the rest of the brown juice. "You mind?" He gestured with his hand to Matt's glass. Matt raised his eyebrows and moved his glass closer to Chandler, who then drank its contents. At least he tried to be polite?

"Look Izzy, you can give it up, we know it's you!" Tai said happily, until he received an elbow jab from Matt.

"Izzy?" Chandler asked, "I'm afraid I've not the foggiest of whom you speak. However, I do know that you…" He gestured to Matt, "Are a very wanted man, and not just by the law enforcements!"

Matt raised his eyebrow, "Oh?"

"Just so happens I know a 'fella who's been trying to seek you out, says you're the one who's gonna take the Lacryma saber." Chandler said as he took a shot of something in a black bottle. Matt sat there for a moment before he realized the man had finished his sentence. It was hard to tell, with the slurring and all. "Pardon me, the Lacryma?" Matt questioned.

"The great sword made of one hundred and eighty nine heroes bones," Chandler chuckled.

"What?" Tai said in disgust. "Is that even practical?" He then turned to Matt and whispered, "And you're going to steal that?" He then exclaimed with judgment, "Dude!"

"He earned it." Chandler said with the tip of the hat that he wasn't wearing. "That's one hundred and eighty nine heroes not unlike you both. Those summoned to defeat Tanek and save us all, Those who failed paid the ultimate price." The man sat for a moment, seeming not so jolly anymore as he reminisced.

"Now you," He then pointed to Tai, "You, I don't know what you're doing around Matt, as you're a knight of the round, serving under King Sebastian, and no matter how much good this bloke is gonna do, you're still shaming your kingdom for hanging around."

"Shows what you know!" Tai said, now feeling defensive. "I'm not shaming anybody. I'm going to save a princess, if you must know!"

Chandler placed his hand over his mouth and hung his head. "So you'll go then?" He then stood up and vigorously shuffled through some scrolls. "Please, I beg of you, before you continue, you _must_ see this man. He lives in Dacre village, by the name of Xander. He'll show you the light." Chandler then handed Matt a scroll containing very little information on this "Xander" character, including the places he frequently visits. "It's imperative that this scroll not leave your side. Surely, Xander is your only hope. However, there are many that given the information of his whereabouts would gladly take his life."

"Uh," Tai gulped. "And this is the guy we should be trusting?"

"Use your own discretion." Chandler said happily. "He's got the answers to the questions you should be asking. It seems like my part here is done." He gave a sad smile. "I guess… I'll hit the road and hope for the best, hope that you, either of you, are the _one_."

Matt and Tai quickly made their way out of the hut, glad to be away from Chandler and his liquor. Neither had glanced at the scroll that had been given them. They made their way through the town in a silent haze. Suddenly the town started looking different. Mushroom and marshmallow houses replaced the huts that once scattered across the beached fishing town. The sand, suddenly not so sandy, but more like round yellow happy faces covering the whole town. The once green water was now in the shape of many old man heads, much to Tai's amusement and horror.

Tai sat on the beach with Matt, both feeling quite confused. Tai splashed some old-man-head-water on his face and mused, "Could this town get any weirder?"

**One might be offended if** they were to expend as much energy as Mimi had in talking to Tanek, only to have him whisper to himself and stalk out without a second thought to the fact that he was being spoken to. One might, were one not Mimi Tachikawa. Mimi was rather used to people not paying attention to things she was saying, and this was especially true of Tanek. Well, it was actually true of Tanek, her friends, her parents, her teachers... Mimi tried not to think about it. The point of the matter was that Mimi was able to view the situation in such a way as to not be offended.

Tanek was a busy man, after all. Maybe he knew her problem already, and he was off to fix it. Perhaps he had assumed she would need to sit down a lot on her voyage, and that she liked colors and pumpkins; then realizing that this was not the case, he rushed off to fix whatever he had done to her ship. It's not that Mimi didn't like colors, but simply hearing the words repeatedly without seeing them was more torture than anything else.

Perhaps Tanek also knew that the Silver Rose was terribly out-gunned by T.K.'s odd little flying machine, and he was off to outfit it with all manner of things that go boom and bang. Mimi wasn't big on sound effects or weaponry, really. She'd earlier asked one of the crew why they didn't have a large arm with a sword on the end that came out of the side of the ship to stab the enemy vessel in order to sink it. They had simply given her a curious look and returned to their duties. It was at that point that Mimi decided not to make any more suggestions regarding weaponry. Then again, it was roughly at this point that mutinous, color-loving stacks of chairs began inhabiting the Silver Pumpkin, so maybe the shock of it simply scared her off of suggesting things.

"Okay then," She shouted after him enthusiastically. "I'll just talk to you when you've got more time!"

Given how random Tanek's actions were, that would be a while. So, with her newfound chunk of free time, Mimi decided to sit with Sora in silence. Watching silently over her friend gave Mimi a sense of peace. The poor girl was safe even when Mimi wasn't there, sure, but being able to see her with her own eyes made all the difference in Mimi's eyes. Walking back through the door to where Sora was held, Mimi noticed a lack of the distinct flowery scent Sora produced. Mimi had first thought the fact that she remembered Sora's scent to be sort of creepy, especially since the last person with a specific smell that she remembered meeting was her uncle Fred; reeking of cigars and motor oil.

At first, she figured Sora was merely wearing perfume, but she eventually realized that Tanek also had a scent: Smoke. Tanek smelled like the smoke from a campfire, T.K. smelled like the Laundromat, and her ship smelled like dried roses. Everything of significance had a scent that she could easily pick out from a hundred feet away, even if it was mixed in with many other smells. She'd asked Tanek to explain it, and he'd merely mumbled something about enhanced senses and gone back to staring out his window like her father did that one year when he was taking all that special medicine he refused to talk about. He never did explain what he was sick with.

Mimi looked through the various rooms, figuring that maybe Sora had taken a nice warm bath and it had washed off the smell. Murmuring to herself in confusion, Mimi glanced out the window to see the drawbridge lowering and Tanek stepping out as he occasionally did. It was funny, though, that Tanek seemed to be clothed in odd rags, wearing his hair differently, and sporting a pair of breasts. He also seemed to be running in no particular direction, and was most definitely Sora. How unlike Tanek, to be someone he was not. Being Sora was much more Sora's department, since she was Sora.

Snapping out of her daze, Mimi quickly came to the realization that Sora was outside among the dangerous elements. "Hey!" She shouted out the window, simply causing Sora to run faster. "Stop!" She shouted again, knowing full well that Sora had no intention of listening. Deciding that stairs were a sucker's middleman, Mimi leapt out the window with little regard for the precious bones that held her equally precious organs in place. Mimi was not prone to wanton acts of self-destruction, of course. Something just seemed to override her self-preservation instincts. Tanek had explained at one point that her prowess had been dramatically increased to allow her to fight with deadly efficiency if the need arose, and apparently this included subconscious acts of crazed bravado. As luck would have it, however, these same instincts Mimi to quickly grasp her situation, and she reflexively drew her sword. Attempting to dig it into the castle walls in order to slow her descent, she began a slight panic when this simply caused the blade to bounce off of a barrier and fly off in a random direction. Apparently enhanced prowesses did not take magic shields into account.

"Oh fudge!" She shouted as her speed increased. She attempted to grab on to something, only to bounce off of the same barrier her sword had. Her third-to-last thought before hitting the ground was that of eating fudge, her second-to-last last was that she could not believe her last thought was going to be about fudge, and her final thought was of the odd white hue permeating her vision, and loss of sensation that accompanied it.

This was her last thought not because of a soon-to-follow death, but because thought became lost to her at that moment. Her eyes became narrowed and drained of most of their usual color, glazing over with a deep, dark blue void. The worried smile she had been wearing because she'd always wanted to die smiling had been replaced with a vicious snarl, and the very air around her began to blacken. That was not to say the black winds around her began to kick up as they tended to. On the contrary, all winds and natural movement around her seemed to cease entirely. With a gesture, her sword reappeared in its scabbard only to be drawn as she deftly smashed her arm through the barrier and into the castle walls, the barrier feebly attempting to push her back out. The entire show did little, however, as she had nearly reached the bottom by the time she entered this odd state of mind.

Sora screamed as Mimi hit the ground, crashing through the drawbridge and falling into the moat. She had barely registered what had happened before she saw a body fall full-force through the bridge and into the foul smelling liquid surrounding the castle. Had Tanek thrown one of his soldiers out the window in a rage? Surely she'd been found out, and Sora took this as a sign to run faster. She couldn't believe how easy it had been to escape the castle.

Then again, she figured, the place was probably designed to keep people from getting in. Keeping people from trying to leave was probably what the dungeon she'd seen on her way out was for. Even so, ninety-nine flights of stairs took a lot out of her, and that was taking the stairs in the back that were labeled 'Express Stairway'. If the back stairs took that long, how long did the front stairs take to climb? Was it too much to ask that the occasional crazed kidnapper install an elevator?

This was why villains always lost: They were just so inconvenient.

The princess had only made it a few steps, however, before hearing another splash. Figuring Tanek had tossed out another soldier, she didn't feel any immediate need to turn around. She wouldn't have to, as it turned out, as Mimi had leapt out of the water and landed square in front of Sora with her sword drawn; cutting a deep line through the sand at her feet in an successful effort to kick a wall of sand up into her prisoner's path. Sputtering, Sora turned to run in several other directions only to be met with Mimi and a wall of sand every time.

"Stop running!" Mimi shouted with both frustration and concern in her voice. "I don't want to bury you in all this sand!" She shouted some more as Sora failed to stop running. "This is for your own good, you know." She said in a more soothing tone as she continued blocking path after path with walls of sand. "Sora, I mean it now! Stop running or else!" She screamed, pulling her sword out of the sand and raising it to the tip of Sora's nose. It was the emptiest threat Mimi had ever made in her life, including the time she'd threatened to kick Davis to Spain if he kept asking how many boyfriends she'd had, but it did get Sora to stop.

"Look," Mimi started. "I'm not supposed to talk to you, but I guess I already have, and you seem to be holding together alright…" She said hesitantly. "I'm sorry if you don't like the castle. I mean, personally I think it's a little creepy, but I think Tanek is just trying to scare off all of the people after him. Some of the rooms are beyond help, sure, but most of them just need a very trendy and attractive woman's touch." Mimi babbled as she tooted her own horn. "Anyways, I need you to come back inside now, okay? We can keep you safe in there, and we can even fix you so you can remember me!"

"No." Sora answered plainly, glaring at the odd woman across from her. She sure was flighty for someone who just survived a twelve hundred foot drop into monster-infested goop. "I'm not going anywhere, and I don't know you."

"I need you to come inside now…" Mimi started with mild panic in her voice. Nobody loved their friends like Sora Takenouchi. It seemed ludicrous to even consider the possibility that Sora didn't remember her. Mimi couldn't bring herself to actually hurt Sora, could she? T.K. was one thing. She was just firing at his ship, not attacking him with a sword.

"No!" Sora repeated at she smacked the flat of Mimi's blade away. "Leave me alone."

"Fine!" Was the black knight's response as she picked Sora up by the shirt and hurled her back into the castle. Caught off-guard, Sora merely braced for impact as she was caught in the waiting arms of the very woman who'd thrown her. "How did you…?" Sora started in a daze. "Let me go!" She shouted as she came to her senses, punching ineffectively at her captor's face.

"I need you to come inside now…" Mimi mumbled to herself somberly as her face was pummeled with what felt like fist-sized raindrops. Eventually growing tired of having her sight blocked by fists, she dropped Sora only to pick her up in a slightly less dignified manner. Just like Tanek said: Talking to Sora only made her violent. Mimi merely held her friend's arms locked in a bear hug as she began her long trek back up the stairs. "You're gonna be okay, I swear." She whispered assuredly to the struggling princess. She would get her friends through this, no matter what it took.

"I am not, you stupid cow!" Sora screeched at the black-clad woman who was holding her in such a way as to make her feel like an idiot. 'Cow' was probably not the most creative or civilized of insults, but it felt good given the circumstances. "Tanek is insane and I'm sure you are, too. You'll both probably kill me once you lure the others here."

"Hey!" Mimi shouted, dropping Sora to the ground in anger as the black winds kicked up around her. They tended to do this when she was angry for some reason. Tanek had explained briefly that a side-effect of her enhanced senses enabled her emotional state to affect the environment around her. She found it strange that nothing ever happened when she was happy. "I am not a cow! I only weigh a hundred and three pounds, and that's with my winter weight!" She finished, fuming at the insult. She remained oblivious to the parts where she'd been called stupid, insane, and a potential murderer. That wasn't important when her weight was being called into question. "I weigh less than you, Miss hundred and thirtyish."

"It's muscle, Mimi! Remember how I play sports? How many times to I have to tell you: Muscle weighs more…than…" Sora caught herself in the middle of a lecture she'd given countless times, noticing the bright smile on the formerly bitter woman's face. "…Mimi?" She asked, more to herself than to the psychotic, sword wielding, superhuman maniac who had just carried her very uncomfortably up a good fifty flights of stairs in short notice.

"You remember!" Mimi screamed with ear-piercing glee as she knelt down to cling to her friend. "Oh, thank goodness you remember!" She sobbed with joy. She hadn't been this happy since that one time, where that one thing happened. Really, she was too happy to go remembering random details from her past. Considering that random past events seemed to be most of what her thoughts consisted of, she must have been pretty happy.

**The sun shone bright in the blue sky**, with the most beautiful crumpled-paper-ball-clouds drifting along in the wind. This was the world as it was seen from the window of the asparagus hotel. Nobody on the streets and no suitcase trolley's going by, just the grass and two dirt roads intertwined with the sun beaming down on them. Still, it looked as though it would be cold out. After a quick escape and an even quicker jaunt into what Davis had now dubbed 'Chippy Town', Davis and Kari had found a quaint hotel to hide in. The hotel was a giant asparagus. It was green, and it was smelly, but it had a price that couldn't be beat! Davis figured that the crazy 'Tai Gobblers' wouldn't be fond of the color green, and therefore would gladly leave them alone. One might bet that in this place Davis' logic was as valid as the next person's. One would lose that bet.

In reality, the glitch in the game had finally favored them. The 'Tai Gobblers' were unable to take five steps without spontaneously teleporting back to their original location. This made escape easy for Davis and Kari once they got out of firing range. Luckily, people without real faces on their heads have notoriously poor aim. Apparently, the eyes on their Tai-head-bodies didn't work very well.

Along the way, Kari had snagged one of the paper notes from earlier that had fallen from the sky. All it had said was 'Porto potty'. Davis seemed positive that it had been a message sent by 'My good friend Izzy' in some way to help them out.

"Do you think those crazy chicken men are gone?" Kari said with worry in her voice. The sight of her brother's head attached to a turkey was horrifying enough without throwing in the fact they wanted to kill her and Davis!

"First of all, they're called Tai Gobblers." Davis corrected, prompting an eye roll from his traveling companion. "Second of all, I think everything is gonna be a-okay." He grinned as he waved the note in front of her. "If you ever get worried, Vivian, always remember, 'Porto potty'…"

"Yeah, that's incredibly comforting." Kari grumbled as she snuggled into her mushy, foul smelling green bed. Aside from the humor of the town, turkey people, and vegetable houses, Kari was beginning to worry. Suddenly she began to miss Tai and the rest of her friends.

The next morning Davis had awoken before Kari did. He checked outside of the windows for any sign of the people that were after them. All seemed clear. Although fearful of the oddly shaped predators that might be hiding in what could only be described as 'the potato bushes' outside, Davis felt a tickle in his stomach saying he needed to use the rest room. He nudged Kari in her bed. She looked adorable cuddled up to her makeshift pillow. She had a speck of drool forming at the side of her mouth. "Viv, I have to pee. Hold down the fort, okay?"

Kari grunted in what Davis assumed was acknowledgement. This was enough for him, and he promptly hurried downstairs. The surprisingly normal shop keep informed him that because of poor plumbing in asparagus houses, there was a Porto Potty outside. This raised great suspicions and great hopes in Davis as he remembered his friendly note from above. Though these great hopes were soon lowered upon seeing the shack.

The Porto Potty was wooden with small cracks throughout the frame and had been warped from the rain. It reeked not of the usual scent, but of fresh cut grass. Apparently, even smells were discombobulated here in Chippy Town. From the looks of it, the potty was rarely taken care of, as there was grass laying everywhere. Though it was grass, Davis felt he had every right to be disgusted.

He stepped into the roofless potty and did his business. After he was finished, Davis opened the door back out into what he naturally assumed would be the forest. There he would once again attempt to fix his newfound project, SuperDavis. Logical as the assumption was, it was incorrect.

Upon exiting the Porto Potty, Davis stepped into a large room with black brick walls and open windows. Even the trees outside of the windows were black, with black bats sitting in them. He figured Izzy was sending him to a grand place in which to hone his awesome skills. However, this place gave Davis more willies than that time he walked into on his aunt Phyllis and uncle Harry, who was, in fact, a very hairy man. Stepping out further into the room, he caught sight of a large red couch in the middle of the room, facing an unlit fireplace. Above the stone fireplace was a framed painting of a scary old man with a bleeding neck.

Davis grabbed his neck and made a bewildered face as he turned away from the painting and towards the hall. He tiptoed over a bridge that was at the end of the room. The water underneath looked deep and had thick, smoldering smoke hovering just above it. Davis made an un-amused face and held his nose as he walked across the bridge. Though he had much confidence that Izzy wouldn't send him somewhere terrible, he was slightly horrified that a grizzly trap would fall on him and he would be fed to the alligators, because in those situations there were always alligators. "Shibby," he whispered to himself as he felt the bridge buckle under his feet.

Davis soon found himself in front of a white door, which had writing on it. In big red letters is said "Contamination room." Suddenly Davis wasn't feeling too hot about going inside. He mustered up the courage and pushed the door forward. The room was rather odd. It was bright white, almost hurting his eyes to look around. The place was circular, with a pool of clear water in the middle. There were flower petals covering the floor. Which kind of flower it was Davis wasn't certain, but it sure smelled nice. The next thing he noticed was the other person in the room with him. It was a small girl. She could only be five or six years old, lying in a wooden bed with a lace bed skirt and white silk sheets.

She was pale, with big eyes and had red hair. He could see a small green and yellow dress clinging to her body. She appeared to be writhing in pain, which was cause for some worry to Davis. She had an impish look to her. A fairy, he thought as he saw small clear wings on her back, flickering under her weight. As he reached the bedside he quickly recognized this little girl to be Asrai, the fairy guide who greeted them when they had first entered the 'Unlock' world. Whoever had her here was clearly twisted and sick. "Hey there, remember me?" Davis asked quietly. "You okay?" He stepped closer to her bedside. There was a small case of white stairs next to the bed, leading up to a door, which began to open quite suddenly.

"Uh oh." Davis whispered. Though he was aware that this place was more like another universe than a video game, Davis couldn't help but notice the similarities between the two, and he'd played enough video games to know that finding some sort of coma lady never meant you could just haul off and take her to the doctor like in real life. No, it always meant a boss was protecting her. Probably some horrible ogre, who was actually way too big to use the doors. He probably sat in the next room all day waiting to crash through the doorframe and kill the intruder, and then when he was done he would clean everything up and wait in the next room again. By this point in Davis' train of thought, he was already under the bed and shivering in fear.

Davis was no coward, but with only a broken arm cannon thing to fight with, and with no super-powered Digimon or awesome mech to back him up, he felt the odds were stacked against him in much the same way the odds are stacked against peppers when faced with his aunt Florence's appetite. That woman ate peppers like some sort of pepper eating…thing. Davis was in no mood to be making comparisons.

As it turns out, it was not an ogre. It was a human wearing black boots and a cape, which Davis imagined was probably much worse. Human enemies had a terrible tendency to be important to the plot, which usually meant they had to be beaten in some special way. Since Davis usually skipped the plot, this often led to one very hard boss.

"Asrai…" The man spoke gently to the small girl on the bed. "Someone is causing trouble on the outside, so I need to go stop him, okay?" He asked, his tone implying he knew there would be no response. "I'll be gone for just a little while, though. I promise I'll be back soon, okay?" The man finished, again knowing there would be no response.

Tanek reached down and cupped the small girl's cheek for a moment, a wistful smile appearing on his face for a half-second before returning to its usual dead stare. Turning to walk out the door, he stopped for a moment to sniff the air. He could have sworn he smelled freshly cut grass a moment ago. Passing it off as harmless bits of the glitched program making its way through his firewall, Tanek continued out the door. "Back to the physical plane with me…" He sighed, his tone unreadable.

"Physical plane?" Davis whispered to himself. The potential advantage Davis could take of this situation was clear. This villain had a fighter-plane, and Davis was going to steal it and use it to rescue the fairy girl. First thing was first, though: He had to take out the black caped man.

Crawling out as quietly as he could from under the bed, Davis peeked through the door to the next room, where the man was casting some sort of elaborate spell. This might be easier than he thought! After all, while wizards could explode stuff with their mind and junk, they were always either old men or young men who were as weak as old men. At least, that's what Davis' experiences had taught him. In addition, wizards were always distracted when they were casting big spells. It was something about concentration or something. This is why Davis always picked the shirtless guy with the big axe. What he lacked in explosions, he made up for with the fact that he was a shirtless guy with a big axe.

"Ambush!" Davis shouted, charging the man from behind and tackling him with all his might. In that moment, it occurred to him that shouting out the fact that he was ambushing his enemy might not leave him with the element of surprise he was attempting to use in the first place. No matter, though, because while Tanek had whipped around at inhuman speed, he was too dumbstruck by the impossibility of what was happening to fight back right away. Davis had landed two solid punches to the face by the time Tanek had even started blocking.

Even then, Davis easily had an advantage off the bat. He was no prizefighter like Ken, but Davis was no stranger to fights. One doesn't have a mouth like Davis' without ending up in the occasional schoolyard brawl. Continuing his assault against Tanek's face with his heavy metal gauntlet as well as his regular knuckles, he failed to notice when his victim had managed to get a grip on the black sword hanging by his waste and clumsily pull it out to push Davis off before he could land a head butt. It was just as well: Davis was terrible at head butting. He always ended up doing more harm to himself than to his opponent.

Rolling back and hopping up, Davis quickly adopted a basic fist-fighting stance and donned a cocky smirk. If his fights at school had taught him anything, it was that he could nearly guarantee his own victory if he could press the early offensive advantage he had gained. Though this would not be exactly how Davis would put it.

"I've got you on the ropes, gothy! Just give up now!" He yelled triumphantly as Tanek began pulling himself off the floor. The black-clad man scowled at the boy as he dusted himself off and wiped his mouth. Looking down at his hand, he confirmed his assumption that he was not bleeding. Turning back to Davis, Tanek merely chuckled as he held his sword lazily at his side. "Or what?" He asked sarcastically. "You'll hit me from behind again?"

"I guess you'll see!" Davis yelled, charging the man a second time and readying a punch with his gauntlet. He hadn't expected to halt halfway in his charge with a sword to his nose. Wizards usually sucked with swords…

"Ooh. You showed me." Tanek muttered darkly as he sliced the tip of Davis' nose and watched as the goggle-headed teen recoiled slightly. This wasn't going to be hard, but it seemed strange that a boy so weak could have made his way into this castle to begin with. "How did you…" He stopped in mid-sentence; knowing full well that any answer he received would be a lie. "I guess I'll have to increase security." He said flatly, with a hint of annoyance in his words.

"Not if I beat you first!" Davis shouted, clearly undeterred by his opponent's superior speed, strength, and armament. It wasn't as though that didn't describe pretty much every enemy he'd ever faced. Approaching with more caution this time and putting his gauntleted arm first, Davis blocked the sword as it headed for his nose a second time; the force of the strike unexpectedly causing him to double-back. Davis repeated this process three more times, determined to force his way past the sword. Tanek was clearly showing off, striking for the tip of Davis' nose with every slash, and simply smirking at Davis' feeble blocking attempts. Finally, on the sixth try, Davis managed to lash out and grab the villain's sword with his protected hand; pushing it up and away by the tip, where Tanek had less control over how it moved. "Not so tough without your weapon, are you, cheater?" Davis called out in defiance, as he began to kick at the man.

"Yes, actually." Tanek smirked as he quickly released his sword and blocked Davis' kick before spinning around and landing one of his own. The power delivered by the kick sent Davis careening into the wall where he fell to the floor coughing. Funny, wizards usually couldn't fight without weapons, either. Davis was beginning to think he'd misjudged this guy's class.

"The old man must be getting desperate if he's sending brainless fidget's like you after me." Tanek chuckled, picking his sword up off the ground and straightening his clothes as he continued his spell from earlier. Not only had he just called Davis a fidget, whatever that was, but now he was ignoring Davis altogether!

"Hey!" Davis shouted, picking himself up from the cold stone floor and reaching out to make the room stop spinning. Straightening out his vision and checking his bones to see if they were broken, which some of them were, Davis steadied himself out and returned to his earlier fighting stance. "Nobody calls me a fidget! Engage the second wind!" He bellowed at the top of his lungs, pointing his gauntlet at Tanek.

Tanek turned with mild interest on his face at the words as Davis stood pointing with increasing embarrassment at the villain. After waiting a few seconds to be sure the boy had only Jokers up his sleeve, Tanek satisfied his curiosity and began putting the finishing touches on his spell. This left him vulnerable to the rather large torrent of energy that ripped through him a few moments later. "Yes!" Davis beamed in victorious glee. He knew blind faith in random triumph would pan out. It always did.

Or it usually did, anyways. Tanek was quickly on his feet, gripping his side in pain and snarling furiously as blood dripped from the left corner of his lips. Davis was again undeterred, sure that he could win with the fidget-caller in such a weakened state.

"I don't have time for this drivel, you fidget." Tanek spoke evenly, with only the slightest traces of his anger apparent. Muttering two or three final phrases that Davis didn't understand, the spell completed itself. Most of the light in the room seemed to snuff out, and all of the doors closed themselves before the room began quickly filling with a black sort of liquid. It was warm to the touch, thin enough to move around in as though it were water, and seemed to be pouring out of cracks in the stone ceiling. "You think you can drown me?" Davis asked boldly, pulling his goggles down over his eyes. "I can out-swim half the kids on the swim team. Bring it!"

Taking his chance to run while the liquid was still shallow, Davis tackled Tanek once more. This time Tanek ceased to fight back, instead focusing on blocking and trying to get away from Davis. This didn't confuse Davis in the least. Now that he knew Davis could trash him, the man in black was trying to wait him out until he drowned. Minutes passed as the fight continued, and by this point the water was deep enough to swim in. Indeed, the liquid had nearly filled the room, and Davis was locked onto Tanek trying to beat him into making the spell stop.

Tanek, on the other hand, was still intent on getting away from Davis. The moment the water hit the ceiling, and just before he was able to take a last breath, Davis found out why Tanek had wanted to get away. All of the liquid compressed, rather painfully, onto Tanek. Tanek seemed unafraid of what was happening, but Davis felt like he was miles beneath the ocean being crushed to death by the water.

As he began losing consciousness, he noticed that Tanek was also passing out. Unlike Davis, though, he was not floundering for air and trying to escape the bubble that had formed around them. He simply allowed himself to go limp. As Davis' eyes began to close against his will, he noticed light. It was a familiar face, with a familiar blue-haired guy looking down at him. It was the last thing he saw before he collapsed and took in a lungful.

**January 25****th****, 7:20 P.M. at the Kamiya Household**. Only minutes had passed since the mysterious note debacle had occurred and the children were all still on edge. Joe was having frequent nervous trips to the bathroom and Cody couldn't stop biting his fingernails, Yolei seemed calm though as she lounged on the floor, laying on top of an orange body pillow. About fifteen minutes after the incident, Izzy, Joe, Cody and Yolei were invited into the dining room to come and eat dinner, ala Mrs. Kamiya. Dinner consisted of meatloaf, a three-bean salad and a hybrid pumpkin potato mash with green sauce on top. They weren't sure of half the ingredients, but Izzy seemed to be enjoying himself.

"How's school?" Mrs. Kamiya piped up.

The table stayed silent and awkward. "Ah. I get it, exams are up and you are all a little nervous, am I right?" She smiled politely.

The truth was that there was plenty to talk about. Izzy had been seeing the same girl for a few months now. Both were taking a computer science and both had a Tentomon, a match made in heaven! A conservative couple, they wouldn't even kiss goodnight in front of anyone. They had the grand plan to get married after five years of being out of school, perfect careers doing genius work and little Tentomon babies running around their apartment.

Joe was in university, a doctor in training. He also had a steady co-op at the hospital on Tuesdays and Thursdays. No lover just yet; always school, school, school. Whenever everyone would hang out, Joe would constantly bring up ways to cure common allergies. Yolei was the captain of the quiz-bowl team, and would be facing off against Ken's team in the finals next week: A bit of a problem for the new couple. As for Cody, he had been helping his grandpa to teach a Kendo class on weekends.

The four children all waited for somebody to take the conversation bait, but nobody was biting the food or the chance to chat…

Mrs. Kamiya nodded to herself and took a bite of mash. As she chewed, she tapped her fork onto her plate to the rhythm of one of her favorite songs. "Boy, I sure hope the kids aren't going to be long," She said as she tilted her head, peering into the computer room at her two children and their friends. "Their dinner is getting cold." The table stayed silent and Joe began to wonder what would happen if this went on all night. How would they manage to fib their way into staying over? Sooner or later, Mr. Kamiya would want to use his computer room and besides, Joe had a family picnic to go to tomorrow.

The choice then became clear: Joe needed to get them out of the game. Suddenly he felt a burning in his stomach that told him to stand up, march right into that computer room and rip the visors and wires off of his friends and smash that system with a baseball bat. "I have to use the rest room," Joe said. He pushed his chair back and left the table. Izzy took note of the determined look on Joe's face and piped up, "Joe I have to go, too."

Joe stopped in the doorway and raised his eyebrow, matching Izzy glare for glare. Joe always tried to be a friendly guy, approachable, nice, and right now, all that was being put on hold. "Well, Izzy, it'll only take a minute."

"Well, _Joe_, I've had to go since six, so…" Said Izzy.

The two boys stood aligned with one another from across the room and exchanged glares. If this had been in the old West, there would most definitely be a shootout. "Well, one of you can use the washroom off the hall and the other one can use the one off the study," said Mrs. Kamiya, an unsure smile crossing her lips.

"I'll take the one in the study," said Joe, and he walked into the computer room.

Izzy chased after him and barged into the computer room. "What do you think you're doing?" He shouted. Joe had run up to T.K. and was frantically pulling at the visor. "Joe, don't be crazy! You could kill him!"

"Don't be crazy, _Joe_?" Joe repeated sounding highly insulted. "Izzy, this isn't fun or cool anymore. These are our friends and they could seriously get hurt. They need to get out of there _now_!"

Izzy ran up and began pulling Joe's hands away from the suit. "I _know_ that Joe, but we need to approach this in a professional manner. You're being too emotional. We've got this under control, you'll see!"

Joe had never considered himself a violent person, and had never considered hitting a person until this moment. Izzy seemed to be taking things lightly and immaturely, like an invention he just _had_ to figure out. But Joe saw it for what it really was: a crazy, mysterious system that was trying to kill his friends. "Izzy," He said and shoved Izzy, knocking over a lamp in the process. "Back off. I'm not joking around here!"

Izzy looked down at the lamp that had fallen and smashed and then back up at Joe, half hurt and half angered. "_Joe_!" As though a sign, some divine intervention to stop fighting, Davis began moving and caught both boys attention, "What's… going on?" Izzy whispered to no one in particular.

Davis eyes stopped glowing and began dilating spastically as his brown pigment began to surface back to his irises. Izzy and Joe had smiles across their faces and took this as a good sign, a sign that maybe they had beaten the game and were all about to come out of it. These hopes were shattered as Davis began convulsing and coughing. His coughs were loud and sounded as though liquids were filling his lungs and he could no longer breathe. He had a helpless look on his face that turned to shock as he looked up at Joe and Izzy who were staring down in wonderment at him.

Davis tried to mouth something as he frantically moved his hands about, trying to mime something out. He locked eyes with Izzy and put his hands over his own throat. Then, he stopped moving. The silence that followed was incredibly unnerving. You could hear a pin drop as Joe and Izzy hovered over Davis, their breath seemingly echoing throughout the silence of the room. Joe knelt down next to Davis and strained to check for vital signs. Davis held a blank stare and was turning pale.

Suddenly Davis' eyes turned to Izzy. No longer seeming disoriented, Davis said, "You did it." His voice sounded hopeful and not without that Davis cheer. He then whispered, "Porto Potty," and gave a thumbs up. Once he uttered that last sentence, his eyes drained of color and returned to their Zen like state.

The yelling, shoving and struggle of Izzy's fall had now alerted Mrs. Kamiya, Yolei and Cody into the computer room. Mrs. Kamiya looked furious and flabbergasted as she saw her lamp on the ground in pieces. "Oh now just a darn minute, you boys!" She hollered. "I'm sorry boys, but I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

There it was.

The thing everybody had thought, the thing everybody wanted to do but never wanted to say. At one point or another, each one of them had considered simply backing out and leaving their friends to fate. Now that the opportunity had presented itself and nobody wanted to take the chance. "Mrs. Kamiya," Yolei said softly, "I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say we are terrible sorry," she spoke the last word firmly as she eyed both Izzy and Joe. "We will pay to replace the lamp."

"Well that's very sweet, dear, but I really do think it's about time you kids leave."

"Mrs. Kamiya," Izzy said firmly, "I know how this must sound but we can't leave. You see, they're playing a video game and it's really important that we stay because it's rather dangerous in-"

Mrs. Kamiya then said, "You know Izzy, I really think you kids should leave. I mean, letting them into the Digital World was one thing but virtual reality video games?" She paused. "This is a school night, they should be studying!"

**Traditionally a ship sailed over water.** Most people take this fact for granted, and they usually have every reason to. Any ship that did not sail on water would probably have to be an airship of some kind. Generally speaking, it would be silly to try sailing a ship through sand, rocks, or a seemingly endless ocean of old man heads. Generally speaking, however, such an ocean would not exist. If it did, it would probably be filled with blood, and the blood could be sailed on. Fortunately, for T.K., the fact that there was no blood in this ocean of disturbingly happy looking old man heads did little to impede his ship's movement. This did not, however, stop him from screaming uncontrollably for twenty minutes upon waking to it.

"I hate this place!" T.K. yelled for the umpteenth time. The sky above seemed to be axes being hurled endlessly across the sky, which had frightened T.K. to no end; assuming they had been what had caused the widespread decapitation of elderly men. The sun was a giant, glowing half of a squid that T.K. had at first figured was attempting to eat the sun. When some time went by and nothing was trying to kill him, T.K. realized that while something was terribly wrong with this place, things were not as they appeared to be.

He recalled once having nudged one of Matt's video games by accident, causing the screen to be filled with odd shapes that clearly didn't belong. Matt had then pulled him away from the TV, called him a goober, and reset the game. T.K.'s first point of order, then, was to blame Yolei for everything that was happening. Cody and Joe were too careful to even go near the X-Master-Whatever console, and Izzy was surely smart enough to control his urge to tinker around with a mysterious alien computer system in some vain attempt to hack the world and play God.

Okay, so it was probably all Izzy's fault.

"Ah, this sucks." T.K. grumbled to himself in defeat. Ultimately, it was up to Izzy to fix the problem, and until then, he could only stare in boredom at the creepy sea of balding elderly scalps. "Patamon?" T.K. called out for what must have been the thousandth time. Patamon hadn't been able to speak since he fused with the ship, which was proving to drive T.K. a little stir-crazy. Why, it was entirely possible that the world looked just as it was supposed to look, and that he was just so bored that he was creating things to amuse himself with using his mind. Taking another look at the 'water', T.K. quickly changed his mind. This was hardly entertaining.

As time passed, T.K. began to see a dock in the distance. After a few moments had passed and he'd gotten a little closer, it became apparent that it was not a dock, but a giant wooden foot that he was seeing. Still, there was a docking station for his boat and he desperately wanted to get out of the 'sea'. Upon reaching the 'dock', he heard a noise. It was a girl, she was shouting "Marth, where are you?!"

T.K., being the gentleman that he was, thought it in his best interest to go and help out this young, possibly very beautiful and knowledgeable, woman in distress. Hell, he would take anyone right now. He'd been alone since he got here, except for his uneasy encounters with madam blow-him-to-smithereens.

The dock foot was easier than expected to dock his boat next to. There was a sign next to the anchor station that read 'World's largest wooden foob', which T.K. supposed some people would find impressive, but he just found confusing. T.K. was glad to step on solid ground as he left the dock. He quickly made his way into the forest to find the source of the commotion. "Hello, is anybody there?" He called.

Kari was not far off from where T.K. was, as she heard him calling out and became very afraid. Davis had been gone for quite some time and now there was a strange voice calling out, which could easily have been one of the 'Tai Gobblers'. "Who's Marth?" The voice called.

Kari stopped in her tracks and looked around frantically for something to hit her soon-to-be kidnapper with. "Aha!" She exclaimed quietly as she found a large wooden branch and began making her way into the bushes to hide.

T.K. innocently wandered through the jungle calling to the woman who had been speaking before, hoping for a way to help her and then possibly locate the whereabouts of his friends. He was growing very homesick and was afraid for the fate of Patamon, his friends, and this world's future. He wasn't even sure what his objective was in the game and already some evil villain woman was stalking him. At least for now he could forget his troubles. The forest was so serene, so peaceful, so…

"Over the head like a stack of bricks!" Yelled Kari as she hit this scary newcomer over the head with her makeshift weapon. T.K. fell to the ground with a hard 'thump' and struggled to retain consciousness. Over the head like a stack of bricks was a saying that Kari would often use when she would roughhouse with her friends. That and her large, friendly brown eyes that began to beam at him...perhaps this was the friend he most wanted to see. "Oh my goodness, I'm so sorry!" Kari explained, "There are a lot of gobble bots around and I just got scared!"

"It's fine, it's fine." He assured as he grabbed his aching head with both hands. Great, out on the sea he gets harassed by a gothic lunatic and here on land he was being attacked with sticks by jungle amazons. Here he was thinking that being on land would be peaceful, informative, and happy. Instead, he'd get to whimper back to his ship with a humongous bump on his head. He quickly began to retract his thoughts of this woman being his childhood friend. "I heard you calling out to someone and thought I could help you, and maybe you could help me. My name's...umm…Richard."

Kari looked down at his white robe embedded with faded writing. It all seemed very familiar to her for some reason. "I'm lost," He said. "You see… I came here on a pirate ship and-"

"P-pirate ship?" Kari interrupted. She suddenly became very afraid that this pirate had been one of the victims of Davis' slaughter rampage that he had so eagerly bragged about. "Are you alright?" Kari asked, now helping him up from the ground.

"I-I've had worse," T.K. said with a slight laugh. Feeling terrified, he decided he wasn't going to help this girl after all. This was no time for second chances. Although the only conversation he'd been able to have thus far on this grand 'adventure' was a half ship half Digimon and a murderous woman with purple hair, so this was sadly still the most normal encounter he'd had yet. "So, what do you think happened to your friend… Marth, was it?"

"Y-yes." She stammered, hoping the name Marth didn't sound familiar to this pirate. "I'm not exactly sure. Last I talked to him he said he was going to use the Porto Potty, but it's right over there and he hasn't come out for hours." As she spoke she studied the writing on the back of his cloak, to her surprise she could actually read it. "Shaza heir, rune solo." She spoke, confusing even herself. "You're… _not_ a pirate!" She exclaimed with a sigh of relief.

T.K. stared at her for a moment longer and noticed she was staring at his cloak, turning his head he asked, "Pardon me?"

She blushed and said, "Your hood, it reads 'Mage of Shaza'. What's a Shaza?" Walking closer to him, she traced her finger over the symbols on his clothes and began pronouncing them in the native tongue of Shaza. She took note that Richard looked surprised and she began to raise her eyebrows, she then asked, "If you're a Mage, what were you doing on a pirate ship?"

"All these questions…" T.K. said with hesitance in his voice, knowing he didn't actually have the answers to her questions. Skimming his eyes around the area, he caught sight of the Porto Potty in question. "Is that where your friend is?" He asked. Kari nodded and said, "I don't want to disturb him, but I'm getting worried. I keep calling out to him and he's not answering. At first, I thought he was just trying to play a game, but… Maybe he went back to SuperDavis?" She spoke absent-mindedly of Davis' poorly named Mech. T.K. nodded slowly as he began quickly realizing how only Davis could come up with a stupid name like 'SuperDavis'. At least now he knew he was near one of his friends. That is, if the Porto Potty hadn't garbled him up into oblivion. T.K. rushed over to the potty and began frantically knocking on the door.

"Marth, if you're in there, open up _right now_!" He shouted. Kari's eyes widened as she watched him yell. He sure seemed passionate about getting Davis out of there. T.K. then said, "Marth, I'm coming in there on the count of three. One. Two. Three!" He yelled as he kicked with all of his might. The blue door flew open with a thud, but inside he found no Davis, no toilet, no trace that anybody had been inside, and now his leg hurt. There was only the faint smell of freshly cut grass.

"Marth?!" Kari yelled. "Marth, if this is a joke it isn't funny!"

T.K. reached for the floor where a note was laying. He picked it up and read it out loud, "Porto Potty." He looked at Kari and raised his eyebrow. "A little redundant, don't you think?"

"No, that proves it. Marth has to have been kidnapped or something!" She raced and took the note out of T.K.'s hand. On the crumpled note there was a black smiley face done in ink that Davis had drawn out of boredom whilst they traveled through the forest. "He'd been carrying this around all day, saying it was some kind of sign from above." She hung her head and looked up at the empty Porto Potty. "I've got to find him."

"We could…umm…use my ship." T.K. suggested. He then explained that about how his ship could fly, and how from above they would have a better aerial view of the forest. Kari quickly accepted his invitation onto his strange ship and, with that, they were off.

**Davis awoke to the sounds of thunder humming through town**. For whatever reason, the gods had decided to smile upon Davis. He felt like the luckiest kid who ever landed back into a Porto Potty full of grass.

Davis ran outside and couldn't help but wonder how long he had been out and how long he had left Vivian waiting. "Viv!" He yelled, his voice echoing through the yard. Nobody answered his call and he began to worry. He searched the forest as best he could before concluding that Viv was no longer in it. He figured she must have gone to get help. After searching the hotel and asking around town, there was no sign of her. He figured he would go to the shop and buy the wings he needed to fix SuperDavis and get an aerial view of the landscape. Maybe she'd gone into the thicket of the forest.

As he walked through the streets, he got chills as he recalled his battle with Tanek and the broken bones that he no longer seemed to have, the feeling of sheer terror and determination that he hadn't felt since the Digital World, and the mysterious vision of Izzy and Joe hovering over his body. Had Izzy brought him back into the world of blue skies and candy-coated chocolate blasters? Had Davis died in the game? Where did that wizard fighter guy go? So many questions, so far to walk.

The people were odd, but eventually a nice old man had shown him the way to a shop for the not so nice price of one hundred…whatever the money was called here. It's a good thing Davis robbed all those pirates. In retrospect, anyways.

Davis walked into the shop and the first thing he noticed was the keeper. She was large, about thrice the size of Davis in width. Her gut fell into three rolls, the largest of which bumped into the counter as she shifted from side to side. As Davis approached her, he noticed small stubble on her chin as she took out a pen and scribbled the something onto some paper. Upon opening her mouth, a spit bubble formed against her lips and quickly broke. "How can I help you?" her voice was flat, as though she was addressing the weather. Davis arched his eyebrow and raised his eyes to the inventory available for purchase.

Instead of attempting to make conversation with the handsome woman he simply said, "I need some parts for my mech. It's overheating."

The woman disappeared into the back for a moment before emerging with a box labeled 'cooling unit X-18999'. He purchased it and left the store with great haste. Shop keeps often yelled at him, usually causing tense awkwardness between townsfolk and Davis. Perhaps if he ever got back to Marth's hometown he would receive some love and hospitality.

There was no time for sight seeing as Davis headed back into the forest. Besides, it was likely that any sights worth seeing were warped beyond imagination. He quickly got to work on fixing him up. Though he had never installed a cooling unit before, he was sure it would be as easy as the time he ate all those pies. Though, eating all those pies gave him major indigestion and diarrhea… Perhaps this wouldn't be as easy as he had thought.

"Insert program disc A into slot seven B." Davis looked down into his manual and read, "Slot seven B is located in bar zone H-fifty five." Davis scratched his head. He was never a big manual fan. "Screw this!" He yelled and shoved the disc into a random slot. This seemed to work for Davis as the machine started buzzing with the sound of life. That just proved that SuperDavis and Davis belonged together.

Hours passed and, after the initial explosive trial run of the cooling unit, he finally managed to put his mech together. He started it up and began flying south. He hummed some show tunes to himself to ease the silence, but this only helped him to realize his lack of potential as a rock star. "Lucky Matt…" He grumbled jealously.

After a while, Davis began to see a ship in the distance. To his horror, it looked like a flying pirate ship. The button that read 'Line one' was now flickering red and white and Davis correctly assumed that he was receiving some kind of call or transmission. Davis clicked the button and with great authority he said, "Who dares to call the great and powerful Marth?"

T.K. looked over at Kari and raised his eyebrow. T.K. now recognized this was Davis by the cocky tone in his voice. He decided to roll with it anyway, and in the process why not impress Vivian? He then said, "Rumor has it you stole a valued stone of the Siah Kingdom from a pirate ship of mine."

"Says who?" Davis retorted.

"Says my men," said T.K., knowing full well that he had no men to speak of. Though the rumor of the jewel was true. T.K. had managed to read the captains log of the Chikastutso, which told him that the mage T.K. was playing was transporting a rare stone for the king of Siah. The stone, however, was taken from T.K. and put in the pirates' vault until they were to dock, but was stolen when the ship was robbed.

"It was the symbol of peace between the two kingdoms," T.K. said. "It means a whole lot to us and we'd be very gracious to get it back, considering you don't really need it."

Kari thought for a moment and then said, "Siah?" She paused. "That's my kingdom. I'm the princess there…" She stood on the deck of the ship and looked over at SuperDavis. She quickly realized that if this man was not in fact Davis, his role in this game would have been the role of her captor, sent to get both her and her Kingdom's stone, then put her up for ransom and sell the stone. Fortunately, there was no doubt in her mind that this was Davis.

Kari walked over to T.K. and put her hand on his shoulder. "It'll be fine," she said hesitantly, "That's my friend I was looking for. I'm sure he has the stone and will gladly give it back. We're not looking for any trouble."

T.K. nodded and felt assured by the woman. "I'll land at the dock near the forest and we'll talk things over." T.K. instantly regretted his failure to inform Davis of his decision to land, because Davis was still coming right towards him. Quickly, he said, "We're landing. It's going to take my boosters a few minutes to turn, but I assure you I will be landing soon to talk this over."

From Davis' perspective though, the battleship Chikastutso was charging right at him for air superiority, and there was no way he was going to let a dinky little pirate stand in his way of finding Vivian! "Ah, so you wanna play chicken, eh?" Davis jeered. "Well I'm the best player I know!" That being said, Davis pushed the gas for SuperDavis and charged at the strange pirate ship with all his might. The rush felt like going down a roller coaster without being strapped in. His body mashed up against the walls, which proved incredibly painful.

The unexpected crash caused SuperDavis' main gun to go off, badly damaging the Chikastutso's right wing and causing it to slowly lurch to the ground in an unceremonious crash. The plates of metal on SuperDavis' face had ripped off and there was a constant alarm sounding as fire invaded the cockpit. That cooling unit was apparently not as amazing as the box advertized. In the midst of the explosions and curse words, Davis had blacked out. His last thoughts were that he was pretty sure he showed that pirate good.

Some time later, he awoke in a field without SuperDavis. His bones ached and he could feel burns peeling from across his face. He sat up and felt a calm as he now saw that the world was no longer crazy skies and veggie inns. The sky was perfect blue and the grass was not edible, purple, or an overwhelming collection of a random friend's face.

The horror truly began when, as Davis sat up, he noticed the ninja with a waist-cape. Men with waist-capes were never working on the side of good. His eyes quickly caught onto the daggers, bombs and collection of blades that decorated this particular ninja's belt. The ninja was staring at Davis quite curiously. The ninja raised his eyebrow and began approaching Davis. Davis immediately stood and began walking backwards, shielding his face with his arms. Never let your enemies get you from behind, or so said Mr. Koromiko, Davis' soccer coach. "Stand back, I have a… a gun thing!" Davis said as he eyed his arm laser.

The ninja then began running at Davis with a large smile on his face, and to see a crazy grinning ninja run towards him scared Davis even more. The ninja tackled him to the ground and sat atop him, pinning him down. "Get off me you big oaf!" Davis yelped as he struggled. The ninja raised his eyebrow as though he were questioning Davis' character. The man slipped off the dark blue mask that covered over his nose and mouth, his big blue eyes beaming as though this ninja was starving and had just found the last pizza on the planet.

"Davis!"

* * *

_24 pages of.. goodness? We added 10 pages to this since we revamped it. Wowza! Also, we have all (but one scene) done of chapter 7 and it's looking to be my (Minot) personal favorite chapter yet._

_Anyway, read and review! _


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